Cat On A Hotwired Roof

By Bek D Corbin

This story is dedicated to Steve Zink, in appreciation for all his good work

There are few things in this world as rare and precious as a real chump. A real chump is food, water, clothing, shelter, money, amusement and protection for the grifter who knows how to use them. Most grifters go from chump to chump, working them until they wise up, but a real chump will keep you in clover no matter what you do to them.

You have a good thing going, if you have a real chump in your back pocket. Danny Coglin had two. He'd gotten them under his thumb when they were in the third grade together, and he'd trained them well. All through school, they thought that he was the cool one, and that he was doing them a favor by letting them hang out with him. It would have been great if one of them was a chump with Money, but you can't have everything. Steve Zanuck was the chump with the book smarts. Keith Chaffee was the chump with the muscles. Between the two of them, Danny usually had his bets covered.

With Steve and Keith - or 'Ox' as he was inevitably known - backing his moves, Danny breezed through school without learning anything more than strictly necessary. In High School, Dan moved into bookmaking and ticket scalping, with the occasional con job on the side. Steve kept the teachers off Dan's back, and Ox kept the hardcases off of him. In return, Dan made sure that Steve and Ox got into parties and scenes that they'd never manage to get into on their own. Or at least that they thought they'd never get into on their own. And Dan made sure that they kept thinking that, in a thousand little ways.

After High School, Ox had to get a job, but Steve breezed into college, and Dan tagged along for the ride. With Steve as an excuse for being on campus, Dan managed to play the college social game for all it was worth, without the bothersome necessities of tuition or actual studying. Dan even managed to score a few grand a year in bogus Student Loans. And of course, there was the bookmaking, the ticket scalping, the bogus test papers, the loan sharking and the light pot and speed dealing. With the comparitively easy sex to be had on campus, college was a good time for Dan, all eight years of it.

But even a perennial bookworm like Steve had to graduate sometime. And the campus authorities were catching on that Dan wasn't an actual student. So, Dan graduated to the more stressful, if more lucrative, grifts and swindles of adult life.

Not that Daniel K.Coglin was content to be a small-time swindler all of his life. Nope, Danny C. had a dream. He wanted to be a Big Time Master Criminal, like he saw on TV and in the Movies. He wanted to be the kind of guy who ghosted from New York to LA, to London to Paris, to Rome to the French Riveria and then to the Carribean, always leaving behind a Big Score that everyone knew that he was behind, but no one could prove a thing. He didn't want to be a crook, he wanted to be an Operator. He wanted to be the kind of guy who thought that a score that bagged him less than a million wasn't worth his time. He wanted to be the kind of guy who lived in the finest suites of the finest hotels, wore the best designer clothes, drove fast cars, and always had at least two gorgeous - if constantly replaced - women on his arm at all times.

And Danny had what it took, he just knew it. He was good looking, with regular features, a good head of hair, and a trim athletic physique. He was glib, and he had a knack for sounding like he knew what he was talking about (especially when he didn't), and he was a snappy dresser. He had an eye for the main chance, and he also had a nose for when things were about to get nasty. And he had a truly devious imagination. And he studied, too! He bought all those Paladium Press books on how to pick locks, bypass alarm systems, forge IDs, smuggle stuff and things like that. Well, so far, he wasn't a very good lockpick and he didn't have any contacts to get him things to smuggle, but that would come along in time. He went to the gym to stay in shape (and meet babes), and he had been studying Karate for ten years. Admitedly, he still hadn't risen above Green Belt, but that would come along in time. Yes, he had all the makings of a world class Master Criminal. All that he needed was a single lucky break to catapult him into the Big Time.

But real lucky breaks are hard to come by, and there's always someone a little better connected than you are to take it away from you. Danny C. got by, and looked good doing it. But he was hungry, and everybody knew it. Hungry grifters are a dime a dozen, and most real operators know that they'll do almost anything for that big break. But Danny C. knew that, too. So, in the best tradition of Master Criminals, he made a break for himself.

*****

I was halfway through doing a translation of a Syrian Political Commentary piece on the historical context of the interaction of the Islamic world with the Non-Islamic world for a local think tank when Danny came calling. No, I don't speak Arabic, but I'm an expert with the Linguistic principles of translation and I have a kickass translation program. Most of doing the translation is figuring out the context, anyway. Mind you, my clients don't know that.

"Hey, Steve!" he said, smiling as he tottered in, bogged down by the weight of bulky leather traveling case. "I KNEW that it was only a matter of time!"

"A matter of time for what?" I let him in, and he staggered over to the kitchenette counter and set the case on the edge.

With a hand free, he pushed a stack of books aside and made room for the case. "Why, our Big Break, of course!"

"What is it this time? You managed to get your hands on the Chief of Police's real set of account books?"

"Nah! Blackmail's a mug's game, anyway. Nope, I finally managed to get my foot in the door of a Major League operation."

"Ahhh... Danny... Are you sure about this? I mean, you're slick and all, but are you sure that you're up to taking on Big Time players?"

"Hey, Steverino! Between my moves, your brains and Ox's muscle, we could take on freakin' SPECTRE, if it really existed! Nope, we have wasted our time in this rinky-dink burg long enough. Now, we get our hands on some REAL bread, and live the good life!"

"So, exactly what's _in_ here, the Maltese Falcon?"

"<Heh> "I dunno. That's what I want you to figure out."

I opened the case and looked inside. It was mostly books, ranging in date from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries. There were also folders of charts and maps. Tucked in along the side was a lockbox. "What IS all this stuff, Dan? And where did you get it?"

"Hey, like I said, I'm not really sure of exactly what it all is. All that I know is that the guys who had it were studying it real hard - and they didn't look like bookworms to me. Past that, I don't want to get you involved. But I figure that anything that these guys were THAT interested in, has to be worth big bucks."

All the rest of the stuff was pretty academic, so I was curious about the only un-academic thing in the box: the lockbox. I reached in and tried to open it, but it was locked. The lockbox itself was very sturdy, and there was a seven-digit combination on a serious looking lock. I looked at Dan. "Tell you what, Steve. You get to work on the rest of this stuff. I'll go get Ox after his shift is over. I'll bring a chisel and hammer. If Ox can't get it open, there's a trick with liquid oxygen that I've been meaning to try." He clapped me on the back. "Whatever's in that box is the key to the BIG TIME, Steve! I can just feel it!"

I tactfully refrained from reminding him that I'd heard that line before. "Gee, I dunno about that, Dan. I'm in the middle of this translation job..."

"Steve! It's a translation job! They don't expect you to be fast! And, besides, if I know you, you're already three days ahead of schedule; am I right?"

Actually, I was four days ahead of schedule. "But I'll get a bonus if I finish ahead of time..."

"Which will still be paid, even if you finish only ONE DAY ahead of schedule. That gives you some free time, doesn't it?"

*****

Much later, at least a couple of hours after Keith's shift was over, they dropped by. Dan was carrying a large lunchbox and a pair of really thick long gloves. Keith had a more usual toolbox. "Hey, Steve - any luck?"

"Dan, I don't think that we should get involved in this."

"So, you HAVE figured out what's going on!"

"Danny, it's either complete moonshine (which is the more likely of the choices), or it's something that no sane person wants to be any part of."

"So, fill us in, and let us make up our own minds. But you managed to figure out what this is all about in only six hours?"

I picked up an old untitled cracked leather book and a bound uncovered sheaf of paper. "This diary was sealed in plastic, and this translation was right next to it, so they sort of stuck out. I had to break the seal in the plastic to be sure, but this IS an English translation of it."

"Oh? Whose diary is it? Hitler?"

"No, but you are much too close to the truth with that guess. This is the diary of Matthias Von Diedenau, a Preceptor of the Thule Gemeinshaft."

"Tool Ge-whatchamacallit?"

"Thule Gemeinshaft. Thule Gemeinshaft, or the Thule Society, was an amalgamation of the various turn of the 20th Century Germanenorden-"

"Germanwhoosit?"

"The Germanenorden were groups of extremely nationalistic German mystics that preached a rejection of Christian values, a return to Wotanic Paganism, militant Anti-Semitism, and a whole raft of other delightful notions that were later enthusiastically adopted by the Nazi party. After World War I, the Germanenorden gathered together into Thule Gemeinshaft. They were very rich, very powerful, very influential and very educated men, who were dedicated to overthrowing the Wiemar Republic and renewing the militarism of the Kaiser. They were also very occultly oriented, and were widely rumored to have used magic to help their anointed popular front - the Nazi Party - to take power in Germany. Von Diedenau was one of their Precepts, or heavy hitters."

"Aaahhh... _Steve_, how do you know all of this?"

"Thule Gemeinshaft is a favorite topic among Conspiracy theorists, along with the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderbergers. A couple of years ago, I was paid to do some research into the relationships of the Thule Society, the Nazi Party and Dupont Chemicals. Actually, I was paid to debunk several charges made in one of those 'And Now the Truth can be Revealed!' books that some whacko wrote. It wasn't that hard. He didn't really do his research."

"Okay. So, this Deedenow guy is a heavy hitter with the guys that backed the Nazis-" Dan's eyes went wide with anticipation. "Are you telling me that this Deedenow guy knew where all that Nazi gold that was stolen off of that transport train to the Reds, back at the tail end of WWII?"

"NO. Von Diedenau disappeared in 1936, years before WWII really started."

"_Oh._"

"Okay, guys, sit down, 'cause this is where it starts to get really weird. First, I'm gonna have to take a little digression."

"Digression?" Keith asked.

"That means that I'm gonna have to lay some background, so that you'll understand what comes later."

"Oh. Okay."

"Right. Now, there's a big chunk of the diary where Von Diedenau starts talking a lot about King Solomon-"

"King Solomon? Like in the Bible?"

"Exactly. Now, while they don't talk about it in the Bible, King Solomon has a major reputation in occult circles for being a real magical badass. The Muslims, who take such things very seriously, call him 'Solomon the Wise'. And in that context, 'Wise' means magically powerful. There were a lot of things said about Solomon, but the thing that really made his rep was that he was supposed to have gone around and bound all Djinn into rocks and trees and things."

"Steve?" Keith raised his hand. "Why did he bind Gin into stuff?"

"Keith, he didn't bind Gin, G-I-N, he bound Djinn, D-J-I-N-N. Djinn are the things that legends of 'Genies' are based on."

"You mean like in 'Aladdin's Lamp?"

"Exactly. If you go back far enough in Muslim folklore, they all say that the Djinn of the Lamp was bound into it by Solomon."

Dan coughed. "Ah, Steve, this is all very fascinating and all that, but what's it got to do with anything?"

"Well, Von Diedenau was corresponding with a Austrian mystic named Lustig, who claimed that the Lamp of the Aladdin myth was probably based on an artifact called 'Solomon's Menorah'."

"Menorah? Y'mean, like those candlesticks that Jews light up around Christmastime?"

"Well, actually, they trot them out for Hannukah, but that's right. Y'see, Lustig pointed out that the rocks and trees that Solomon bound Djinn into had certain mystic significances - keeping in mind that the 'rocks' that we're talking about are big honking boulders, not dinky little things that you could throw with one hand. So, Solomon wouldn't bind a Djinn into a mundane lamp, but into something that had mystic significance, like a menorah. Lustig also claimed to have translated an ancient Arabic text, which said that Solomon had defeated a Djinn so powerful that it could 'reweave the world'. Since it was too powerful to just stick in something, Solomon broke up the Djinn into ten 'monads'-"

"What's a 'Monad'?"

"It's Greek; it means 'unit'. According to certain occult theories, Djinn, Demons and Spirits aren't a homogenous blend of spiritual energy; the energy divides into ten groupings that act sort of like organs for a living being - eyes, ears, heart, and so on. Anyway, according to this Arabic text, Solomon broke the Djinn up into these 'monad' units, catagorized them in the style of the Sephira of the Sephiroth-"

"Seffi- what?"

I gave a martyred sigh, stalked over to a bookcase and pulled out a book on Jewish mysticism. I flipped through the book until I found a nice large plate with the design that I was looking for. I pointed to a design that had a column of four circles with two columns of three circles on either side of it, and lines connecting the dots in an elaborate web. "THIS is the Sephiroth. It's one of the most important symbols in Kabbalism, the Hebrew system of occult wisdom. Each of these ten dots here is called a 'Sephira', and it has a name and power and meaning unique to itself. Depending on who you ask, the Sephiroth is either a ladder to Heaven, a blueprint for building an Angel, a system of organizing knowledge, a puzzle that must be unraveled in order to find pure Truth, and a whole lot of other things.

"Anyway, Solomon broke up the Djinn into ten monads, arranged the monads according to the Sephiroth, and bound each separate part into a different part of a golden and bejewelled menorah."

Dan shook his head. "Hold on, Steve - don't menorahs only have Seven candles on them?"

"Some do, but other, especially the older ones, have Nine. Besides, technically you can’t really call it a menorah. Menorahs are to commemorate the victory of the Maccabees, which was centuries after Solomon’s time. But ‘candalabra’ is clumsy, so antiquarians have tanken to referring to it as ‘Solomon’s Menorah’. Gentile antiquarians, I note."

"But if there's only Nine candles on it, what did Solomon do with the Tenth monad?"

"Ah! You see this Sepirah-" I pointed to the circle at the very bottom of the Sephiroth diagram, "-is named 'Foundation', so Solomon-"

"-Bound the monad into the base of the menorah." Dan finished for me.

"Exactly!"

"And in order to get Three Wishes, you have to rub this menorah?"

"No, of course not! Remember, the Aladdin myth is a storyteller's tale based on bits and pieces of various older stories. Somewhere along the line, the storytellers dropped the image of the candleabra and turned it into a more humble oil lamp, probably for dramatic contrast to the fantastic power contained within. And since a poor street urchin like Aladdin couldn't possibly know the elaborate set of circustances neccessary to unlock the power of the menorah, they just had him do something simple and credible, like rub it to clean it up a bit."

<Sigh> "And the whole bit about the Three Wishes is just a storyteller's tale, too."

"Ah, actually, according to Von Diedenau and Lustig, it isn't."

"WHAT?"

"Ahem! The reason that Von Diedenau and Lustig were so interested in Solomon's Menorah, is that, according to that Arabic text, at the right time and the right place, Solomon could tap into the power of the Djinn bound within the Menorah."

"Y'mean, he could wish for stuff, and it could just appear?"

"It's a bit more involved than that. Apparently, the Djinn inside the Menorah could somehow mold the very fabric of reality. But, it was very localized, so you couldn't just completely re-make the world. You could however, change lead into gold, glass into diamond, a person into an animal, or a living being into stone and stuff like that."

"So, you could make an old man young again?"

"Concievably. But Dan, remember, this is a bunch of stuff that a bunch of Old World New Agers dreamed up. It's all moonshine."

"Maybe. Now, what if I wanted to turn myself into Superman?"

"It wouldn't work."

"Why not? If the dingus can change the fabric of reality-"

"Yes, Dan, it can. In theory. BUT, once it's done that, whatever it's changed still has to abide by the Laws of Physics. And no matter how much they try to explain him away, Superman just doesn't work."

"Okay, how about Green Lantern's Power Ring?"

"Dan, you're still not getting it- _Laws_ of_ Physics_!"

"Not the stupid-science Green Lantern, the one that they came up with back in WII, the one that was magic! If the Djinn is magic, can't it create a magic ring?"

"Dan, I keep telling you, it can't really happen! It's just a bunch of old rich guys' pipe dreams! And even if there were such a thing as Djinn, the rules they set still won't allow for Green Lantern, no matter what generation. Green Lantern's ring would be more powerful than the Menorah, and you still can't trade up like that."

"Okay, IF the Lamp-"

"Menorah."

"Whatever - IF the Menorah works, could it, say, turn me into Batman?"

"Well, at least you're getting closer to reality this time, Danny. Yes, it could turn someone into Batman, BUT there would be two problems. First, they would become Batman, with all the remarkable physical and intellectual skills, and maybe even the outfit. But, there'd be no way to re-create Bruce Wayne's fortune, his social and business contacts, the Batcave, the Batmobile, Batman's street informants or any of that. And, they would BE Batman, a revenge obsessed vigilante who has an encyclopedic knowledge of a world that doesn't really exist. He would be an expert on the layout, laws, organizations and personalities of Gotham City, which is completely useless in the real world! And he'd probably go nuts trying to locate Gotham City, which doesn't exist! And he wouldn't remember who he'd been before, because he wouldn't be that person anymore.

"Second, there's real problems with you turning yourself into anything."

"Oh? Why?"

"It's like trying to objectively describe your own face without a mirror. When Von Diedenau got the Menorah, he had an associate...experiment...with it, and had him try to change himself. It turned out...badly."

"Did this Deedenow guy ever get the thing to work out right?"

"Sort of. That depends on what you mean by right. He used it to 'wish' that a Right Wing German politician would become the Leader would would unite the squabbling factions of the German Right, crush the Communists, and take command of Germany."

"And what happened?"

"I think that you know what happened. The guy that he used it on was Adolph Hitler, just before the Beer Hall Putch. Hitler managed to turn a complete fiasco into something that made him a household word in Germany, and was the turning point for the Nazi movement."

"So, the Menorah DID work!"

"Sort of. It turned a shabby street-corner orator into a Master Politician. Unfortunately for Germany, it didn't turn him into a Master Statesman, or - fortunately for the rest of the world - a Master Strategist. No matter what Hitler thought."

"So, what happened to this Deedenow guy?"

"Well, unfortunately for him, he 'wished' for a forceful leader to take charge of matters, and he got one, in Spades. But, forceful leaders don't take kindly to being micromanaged by their backers, no matter how much those backers want them to succeed. In 1934, about a year after the Nazis took power, Hitler sort of eased Von Diedenau's circle out of the picture, along with a whole bunch of other early backers. Two years after that, according to Von Diedenau's journal, the proper conjuction of stars and 'etheric flow' happened, and Von Diedenau went out into the Black Forest to try and use the menorah on himself."

"What happened then?"

"God knows. Von Diedenau's last entry in his journal is basically 'Well, here goes nothing'. After that, nothing. Von Diedenau disappears, and after the War, bit and pieces of the menorah start popping up in the European antiquities markets."

"Bits and pieces?"

"Yah. It seems that after King Solomon went to meet his Lord, his successors fought over control of the menorah. Can you blame them? At some point, someone broke up the menorah into ten pieces, probably to make it as hard as possible for anyone else to have complete control of it, while avoiding destroying it and releasing the Djinn. And, in the grand tradition of such things, the pieces were scattered and several forgeries and such were made, complicating things further. All ten pieces of the menorah came together every so often, but then it was broken up again. The damn thing is just too powerful."

"I can imagine! Just think of it! Every time the stars are right, you can tinker with the very nature of reality!"

"Actually, Dan, you can't. According to this, the 'Three Wishes' bit actually has a basis in reality. Apparently, there is some mystic principle that limits an individual to using the power of the menorah three times only. After that, if you try to use it, it kills you."

"And you need all ten pieces, all put together, in the right place, at the right time, in order to do anything. Hmmm..."

"Well, _I_ would have thought so, too-"

"Buuuuttt....?"

"Well, according to Von Diedenau's journal, he only had four of the pieces: the Foundation, the Splendour, the Kingdom and the Crown pieces. BUT, he could only use the power of the Djinn Once with those pieces, he needed all ten for the other two. He used his contacts in the SS to track down the other six pieces."

Dan mused. "So, in order to get a wish, we only need four pieces..." His eyes shifted to the lockbox. "And if these guys are crunching over numbers on figures to calculate the perfect place... Then that must mean..." He reached over and picked up the box. "Ox, get the hammer and chisel ready."

I took the box from him. "That won't be neccessary." I opened the box.

Dan's chin almost hit the floor. "How did you open that? That's a Wessler-Kunst lock! They're some of the best built security locks in the world!"

I held up the plain paper translation of Von Diedenau's journal. "It's hand-written right here on the flypage. It's disguised to look like a phone number, but I took a chance and it worked."

I showed Dan and Keith the contents of the box. Sure enough, nestled in niches in the foam rubber padding, were a gold circular base piece with a pale yellow crystal surrounded by raised Hebraic letters, a golden post, a golden crossbar that didn't really go with the rest of the pieces, and three bits of golden metal, with Hebrew characters and large colored gems that rose up from the metal like the flames of a candle.

Picking up the Kabbalsim book again, I pointed at the Sephiroth design. "In case you're wondering, those glyphs on the gem-holders mean 'Splendour', 'Kingdom', and 'Crown'."

Dan jumped up and did a jig. "Yes! Yes, Yes, Yes!"

I stared him down. "And now, with that all said, you can start figuring out a way to sell those things."

"What? Are you kidding?"

"Dan, that thing is nothing more than a really old curio. Unfortunately, if these notes are right, there are some very serious wackos who want it, real bad. Dan, you've finally made your Big Score - that thing should be worth millions to a real devotee of the occult. You should be able to get hundreds of thousands for it from a good fence. But you have to get rid of it! Those people that you stole it from will hunt you down and kill you if you don't get rid of it first!"

"Actually, Steve, I was thinking about trying out the ritual that they've planned out."

"What? Are you kidding? Do you really believe all that 'Aladdin's Lamp' garbage? Dan, even if it's real, it's still no good! IF it's real, then you're tampering with forces that you can't possibly control!"

"Steve! Steve! Please! I don't think that there's part of a 'genie' in here, any more than YOU do! BUT, the guys that I took this from would only go to these lengths if they really thought that there was something real here. And they didn't look like the types to believe in Aladdin's Lamp."

"But-"

"Steve, I'm not saying that there's a Genie in this thing, I'm only saying that there's something going on with this dingus." He sat down straddling the back of the chair and looked at me. "Steve, consider this - remember all those Chinese and Japanese things that we Americans used to think were bullshit, but turned out to actually work? Things like accupuncture, yoga, kung fu, feng shui, and all that shit? Now, King Solomon may not have been a real sorcerer, but he didn't build up a reputation that's lasted for over two thousand years out of pure smoke! He had to have had something. What it was, I dunno. But I'd love to know." He smiled a chesire cat smile at me. "And I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that you would, too."

Damn the man! He knows me too well!

"Admit it, Steve - you wouldn't have spent the last six hours plowing through that journal if you weren't eaten up from nose to tail with curiousity! The secret of the Menorah is major league; even if you can't make a huge rep writing it up, you'd still cut off your good hand with a dull knife to know what it is. Whether it's real magic, or some kind of thing that just looks like magic, it's a major discovery! You will understand the universe more clearly for understanding this. You've spent your entire life sniffing around the edges of real scholarship, but never really doing any real scholarship. Now, this drops in your lap? Are you really going to shut your eyes and let someone else make the first great discovery of the 21st Century?"

He had me, and we both knew it. He was right - I chewed through the contents of that turgid journal like it was the latest Steven King novel. I was hooked. I HAD to know!

Dan patted me on the shoulder. "Hey, Steve, even if it only turns out to be a three-thousand-year-old parlor trick, we'll still be in a better position to fence it if we know what's really going on, won't we?" I nodded. "Cool! Now, you said that there were certain very specific conditions that had to be met. What are they? We don't have to sacrifice a virgin, or anything, do we?"

"No, nothing like that - actually, it's very simple, it's just that there are two very precise variables that have to be exactly met: Time and Location."

"Why?"

"Well, according to Von Diedenau's notes, there's a kind of 'Tellurgic Energy'-"

"Tell-u- what-ic?"

"'Tellurgic'- it means 'of the Earth'. It's some kind of electromagnetic energy that's supposed to flow through the Earth like a river. And, like a river, it flows stronger at come times and weaker at others, mostly determined by the location of the Sun, Moon, and Planets."

"Like in Astrology."

"Yep. As a matter of fact, Astrology as we know it may have started out as a way of keeping tabs on this energy, but the real reason got lost in secrecy and charlatanism. Anyway, this energy is affected by the location of bodies of water, mineral deposits, towns and buildings, roads, railroad tracks, and stuff like that. Most of these maps and charts and stuff are for figuring out exactly what's affecting the flow of this 'Tellurgic Energy' in this region."

"So, that suggests that if these guys are here, with these parts of the Menorah and all these charts-"

"That they believe that an Astrological convergence will cause a powerful flow of Tellurigic Energy in this region, and they wanted to find the exact spot to perform the rite."

"Can you figure out when and where?"

"Maybe. But if _I_ can do it, so can the people that you stole all this from, too."

"Let me worry about that, Steve. You just do the Math; Ox and I will take care of the rest."

 

*****

As Danny C. left his brain-chump to his number-crunching, he thought carefully. He knew that Steve really believed in the wish-granting power of the Menorah; Steve was just too much of a wimp to let himself admit it. And if Steve really believed in it, then there was something to it.

So, Danny C., you're in position to get yourself a wish. Okay, if the nerd is right, it's a really limited wish, but it's still the biggest break that you've ever even heard of. The question is, what do you wish for? Gold? Jewels? Cash? No, that was penny-ante thinking. What would Professor Moriarity do?

Danny dropped into a 7-11 store for a pack of cigarettes and something to nosh. As he waited for the middle-aged harridan in front of him to finish making her lotto decisions, his brain was cranking away. The cold, calculating rational part of him said that what he'd said to Steve was the truth: that the 'secret' of the Menorah was some ancient penny-ante parlor trick. But a big part of being an operator was going with your hunches, listening to that part of you that wasn't bound by mere facts. And that part was telling him, loud and clear, that Deedenow and Lustig and the guys that he'd stolen the traveling case from were right on the mark. He was in a position to get a wish. A real wish. But One, Single wish. Penny-ante just wasn't gonna cut it.

This is getting me nowhere, he told himself. He let himself stop thinking so furiously for a moment. He looked incuriously around the 7-11. Then his wandering gaze fell on the comic book rack. He focused on one particular title.

Then the brick fell, and it all clicked into place!

It would take some work, a thorough thinking-through, but he knew that it would work. And somewhere in the mundane noise of the 7-11, Danny C. knew that he could hear the sound of Professor Moriarity's spirit (if not ghost) cheering.

*****

Danny and Keith dropped by the next day with take-out Chinese. "So, any idea of when and where?"

<sigh> "Oh, I know _when_, but then so did the guys that you stole this from - Friday night, at 10:21 and 15 seconds. But as for _where_, I'm at the same impass they were."

"Why's that?"

I pointed to the chart that I'd been obsessing over all night and most of the day. "See this line? It's a 'current' of Tellurgic energy. All these numbers along here are like the 'pressure' that this current is at these places. But the numbers don't add up. There's something changing the flow, and if I don't get ALL the figures just right, we could be wasting this conjunction. And I don't know enough about all this to calculate the time and place of another conjunction out of raw data."

Danny and Keith looked at the chart and made a few obvious comments that I'm afraid I wasn't very patient with. Then Keith pointed at one particular point. "Ain't this Lake Fossey?"

"That's what it says on the chart," I snarled.

"It has the same number as all these other lakes."

"Yeah? So what?" I strummed my fingers on the table irritably.

"Don't you remember? A couple of years ago, people got all hepped up about folks dumpin' garbage and old junked cars in those lakes? And then they got the County to go and haul all those old junkers out of the lakes?"

"Yeah, I vaguely remember that. What are you talking about, Keith?"

"Well, don't you remember, the DeeJays cracking jokes about how they cleaned up all the lakes, except for Lake Fossey? Once they started haulin' clunkers outta the lakes, folks stopped bein' interested, so they just never bothered to do anything about Lake Fossey. B'sides, it wasn't anywhere near any good neighborhoods-"

Dan stifled a smirk. "Sure! I remember that they were callin' it Lake Rusty Faucet! So what?"

But I got what Keith was getting at. "So, Lake Fossey is still full of old junked cars! And that much raw metal would definitely change the way that the Tellurgic energy flows..." With that, I started furiously recalculating the effect of that much iron on the value of Lake Fossey, and how it would affect the flow of the energy.

Dan clapped Keith on the back. "Good Work, Ox! See? You do add something to the team!"

 

*****

A couple of hours later, I had it figured. I pointed at the chart. "Right here, at the intersection of Clark Road and Ashton Lane. And, that's way out in the boonies, so we don't have to worry about being interrupted."

Danny rubbed his chin. "Maybe... But LeFabre is still looking for the Menorah. He can't take the chance that we'll figure it all out, and while he doesn't know the precise place where the ritual has to happen, he has a good idea of the general vicinity. If _I_ were LeFabre, I'd have men out in that area with compasses, watching for any sign of the ritual."

"So, what do we do?" Keith asked mournfully.

Danny smiled wickedly. "Not to worry, Ox. I got it covered."

 

*****

I gave Danny a hard look as we drove down the country road. "Dan, how did you manage to flip that tanker truck so that it blocked the interstate turn-off?"

Danny snickered. "I paid a stripper $200 to flash her tits when I gave the signal. You do the math."

"Okay, now what?"

"NOW, we head for the drawbridge." Once we were at the bridge that raised to let ships on the river pass, Danny got out and disappeared into the darkness. Fifteen minutes later he came back, wiping oil from his hands.

"What did you do, Dan?"

"Oh, nothing much - I just gimmicked the counterweight so that the next time the bridge raises - and there's a ship just around the corner - it won't go back down."

"Cutting off access to the Clark/Ashton crossroad. But what if they're already on the other side of your blocks?"

"Hey, we can't control everything. But we can cut down the odds a bit."

 

*****

The three friends - or at least, the two friends and the guy who pulled their strings - pulled up to the intersection of Clark and Ashton. As befits such things, the crossroads was at least a quarter mile from the nearest building. As Steve wandered around the intersection with a compass, Danny C. and Ox pulled roadblock sawhorses out of the back of the pickup and set them up a hundred yards down each road.

Finally, it was 10:10. Steve took the pieces out of the lockbox and slid the interlocking framework that someone had built around the pieces of the menorah into place. Danny C. made sure that the video recorder was ready, and handed it to Ox. Then he handed a pad and pen to Steve. "What's this for, Dan?"

"For your notes, of course."

"How am I supposed to be taking notes while I'm using the menorah?"

"Steve, I can't let you take the risk of using the Menorah. It's too dangerous. Even if it's nothing more than a 2,000 year old parlor trick, there's a real chance of the wielder getting hurt. This is my idea, I should take the risk. Besides, you're the best person to take notes - you're insightful, observant, and you know what to watch for! Besides, you're going to need to be as objective as possible; how are you supposed to be objective if you're part of the process?"

Steve shrugged and handed Danny C. the Menorah. "All right. Okay, Steve, exactly what do I do?"

"Well, according to the notes, all you really have to do is create a picture in your mind of the change that you want to effect. I brought fifteen pounds of dry graphite copier toner. I want you to visualize the carbon of the toner turning into its crystalline form. If Von Diedenau was right, the toner should combine into the world's largest diamond. There is one bit of business, but I don't know how neccessary it really is."

"Well, considering the circumstances, I think we play it as much by the book as we can. What's the bit that you were talking about?"

"Well, according to the notes, you should start facing due North. Keep standing there until one of the crystals lights up. When it does, make a quarter turn to the East, until the next crystal lights. Then you take another quarter turn to the South-"

"Yea, yeah, I get the idea - keep turning as each crystal lights up, until I've made a complete circle."

"WHILE keeping the change that you want in your mind at all times!"

"Not to worry. Now, explain all of this for the camera."

Steve spent about five minutes explaining the theory and history behind the menorah, and describing the 'experiment' in detail. And then it was time.

Danny C. took the Menorah in both hands, faced due North, held it out in front of him, and began concentrating with all his might. He did this for several minutes, with no visible result. He gave the candlestick an exasperated look, and then suddenly, he felt a vibration. The Menorah began shaking, and started to give off a weird hum. Steve noticed that the compass in his hand veered off from True North and started to point at the menorah. Then the 'Splendour' crystal gave off an eerie blue light.

Danny C. dutifully turned to the East. The humming never stopped, but it did change pitch. The 'Kingdom' crystal lit up in a pale yellow light. When Danny C. turned to the South, the humming changed pitch again, and this time, it didn't take anywhere near as long for the 'Foundation' cystal in the base to give off a bloody red light.

Then Steve heard something to off to the west. He heard the sound of wood clattering, and the sound of an engine. "Dan! Someone's coming!"

Danny C. didn't seem to notice. When the 'Foundation' crystal went red, he turned to the West. He was concentrating so hard, his brow glistened with sweat. Ox put the camera down on the hood of the pickup, so that it would still record what happened, and reached behind the front seat. He pulled out two shotguns and handed one to Steve.

As Ox chambered a round into the shotgun, Steve looked at the weapon like his friend had handed him a wet flounder.

Down Clark road, a limosine came driving up out of the darkness. Several yards from the crossroad, the limo stopped and the door opened. Several men, their features unclear in the darkness, climbed out of the car and began to advance.

"Dan! Dan, snap out of it! We've got visitors!"

Even as the 'visitors' closed, the Menorah's hum grew into a weird shrill howl, and the 'Crown' crystal lit, causing all the other crystals to change their color. The Menorah exploded in an iridescent ball of light. And somehow, Steve Zanuck also erupted in a sphere of rainbow light.

Not knowing what the hell was going on, Keith Chaffee gaped as his friend was bathed in light. Steve dropped the shotgun and looked at his hands. His form grew faint and indistinct, and even the very fabric of reality went blurry around the edges. Steve's form changed. Where the pear-shaped form of a confirmed bookworm had been, a leaner, curvier form appeared.

The new form was definitely female; of that, the skin-tight bodysuit left little doubt. She had a lithe hourglass figure, with a full yet firm rear end and a set of bosoms that should have been too large but somehow weren't. The bodysuit was a thin, supple gray leather, with long black gloves and boots of a leather that were only slightly thicker than the rest of the suit. Around her waist was a belt of dull gold metal disks. The hood of the outfit had a pair of 'ears' and a set of pointed goggles, but it only covered the upper half, baring a triangular face of stunning regal beauty, with large startlingly green eyes over high regal cheek bones, a straight upturned nose, a full lower lip and a pointed chin. The hood opened up enough in the back to let a fall of midnight black curls fall to the middle of her back. The fingertips of the gloves were equipped with curved metal 'claws', and she held a long whip in her right hand. The heels of her boots were at least four inches tall, and spike-thin, but she was so perfectly balanced on them, that it didn't look as if they would slow her down in the slightest. As this feline fantasm of feminine fabulousness grew more distinct, the green eyes snapped wide open, and there was a brief moment of confusion.

 

*****

I am Catwoman. It doesn't matter whether I started out as the daughter of a wrongly convicted man, or an abusive drunk's daughter who turned to prostitution, or an underestimated secretary who miraculously survived a fall, or a socialite with an obsessive concern for the Environment, or a pastless, contextless female adventurer. No matter how I started, I am Selina Kyle, the Catwoman. I doesn't matter whether I wear a purple dress and cape, or supple leather with a tail or black spandex with cat ears and a face mask, or if I patch my outfit together out of vinyl - I am Catwoman! I am wild, proud, quick, clever, strong, daring, beautiful and above all, FREE!

Unfortunately, I am also Steve Zanuck, a dweeb who never had the guts to actually do any of the thousands of things of which I dreamed. No, the only times that I ever crawled out from behind the safety of my books was when my friend Danny wheedled me out, and into anything.

I was only beginning to handle the conflict, when I felt Keith's hand on my shoulder. "Steve? Are you all right?"

And then I remembered our 'visitors'. My eyes swept over to the limo and focused on the men getting out. They were pulling guns. Obviously, they worked for this 'LeFabre', from whom I supposed Danny had swiped the menorah. Somehow, I doubted that they'd just take the damn candlestick and take out their aggressions on Danny.

I reacted without any further thought. With a snarl, I charged straight at them. As one of them raised his gun, I went into a rapid roll of handsprings, throwing off their aim. Even at close range, less than one bullet in ten actually hits. Ending my roll in a handstand, I kicked the limo door shut, catching him and his confrere in the middle. Instantly regaining my feet, I sent my whip uncoiling across the limo roof, snapping one of the goons on the other side right across the eyes. Another one tried to get a Baretta 9mm flush against my head, and got his gun arm twisted into a spiral fracture for his efforts. I flipped onto the top of the roof and dealt with the two remaining thugs with my whip.

As the thugs reeled from my onslaught, I dropped to the ground and checked inside the limo. Inside was an extremely well dressed man who looked to be in his early seventies. He was very fit for the seventies, but he was still obviously well past his prime. He only gaped at me for a second, and then went for something under his coat. I nailed him with the butt of my hand against his chin before the gun could clear.

Making a lightning quick survey of the inside of the car, I snagged his briefcase, his wallet, moneyclip, keys and his Rolex© watch. Then I reached over to the steering column, and grabbed the keys.

Then I heard Danny back at the pickup. "Steve! Stop screwing around and get back here!"

Even though I rationally knew that Danny was right, I really hated just meekly obeying him. I started to give him the finger, but I couldn't. I wanted to, but I couldn't. Despite myself, I started to head back to the pickup.

As I started to get back to Danny and Keith, one of the thugs managed to get in my way. I took him out with a triple combination of foot crunch, elbow to the solar plexus, and knife hand to the Adam's apple. I ran a few feet and then turned. When I was sure that at least one of the goons was watching, I whistled and jingled the keys. Then I threw the keyring as far into the underbrush as I could.

In a trice, I was back in the pickup. Keith had been waiting for me, and peeled out immediately. Danny turned to me and snarled, "Why did you throw away the keys? With that many of them, it won't take them that long to find the keys and get after us."

I calmly replied, "Simple. If I didn't leave them the keys, then they'd just hotwire the limo. Even with six of them, finding a set of keys in the underbrush in the dark will take a lot longer to find than it would for one of them to hotwire a car. Besides-" with a smirk, I held up the ignition key to the limo, "-I didn't leave them the one key they really need."

Splitting his attention between the road and me, Keith asked nervously, "Steve? Is that really you?"

"Yes. No. Both. Sort of." I shook my head and tried to concentrate. "I AM Catwoman. But, I'm also Steve. It's...very confusing."

Danny put what he probably supposed was a comforting arm around my shoulder. "Don't worry about it. All you need is a good night's sleep, and you should be able to pull it all together."

I snarled at him, "Nice idea, but there's a problem! We can't take the chance that LeFabre knows where you live, and thanks to you, I don't have my keys!"

"Thanks to me? What are you talking about?"

"The keys to my apartment were in my pants pocket - which doesn't exist anymore! I could pick the lock, no problem, but do you honestly think that my landlady is gonna put up with a woman in a Catwoman costume fiddling around with the door of a tentant?"

"Why not just break in through a window? After all, you ARE Catwoman?"

"I live on the Third Floor without a ledge or a Fire Escape - I'm not gonna do a free fall entry with my head in the shape that I'm in. And Bubba, I am NOT going to a motel dressed like this!""

"Good point. Even stuck out in the Boonies, LeFabre still probably has a cell phone. He'd have his people still in the city out on the lookout for a woman in a Catwoman costume." Danny looked at Keith. "So, Ox, do you think you can talk your mother into putting us up for the night?"

Keith sighed, "Mom ain't gonna like this."

 

*****

Ox tried to keep it in as he drove homeward, but he couldn't. "Dammit, Danny, why did you change Steve into a woman?"

"Actually, Ox, I didn't."

"Hunh? But You was the one with the minnow-rah! You was the one makin' the damn Wish!"

"Okay, I'll accept half of the blame, but ONLY half."

"What are you talkin' about?"

"Honest, Ox, before LeFabre and his boys showed up, I was concentrating on turning the graphite into a big honking diamond, just like Steve said. But, LeFabre drove up just as I was going through the very last bit. When Steve yelled that we had 'visitors', I guess that my unconscious mind reacted. I knew that there was no way that You, Steve (as he was) and I could handle those guys, so without thinking about it, I wished that there were someone who could handle them. Steve was the one who was changed because the was the one who needed protecting the most. Either that, or it was 'cause he was the one who rattled my concentration, I dunno. But I didn't provide the image of Catwoman. I think that was all Steve's fault. _Why_ Steve has Catwoman as an image of someone who could handle those thugs, instead of Batman, or Chuck Norris, or Bruce Lee, I dunno."

It sounded right, Ox thought to himself. But then, everything that Danny said sounded right - even the stuff that blew up in their faces. Ox snuck a look over at Steve. It hurt Ox's head to think that this woman was really his old buddy Steve. God, she was beautiful...

 

*****

It was half past One in the morning when Ox pulled up in front of his mother's house.

As they walked up, Ox carefully wrapped a long coat around 'Steve'. "What's this about, Keith?"

"I don't want Ma gettin' too upset. You know she don't like it when we get all caught up in stuff. Oh, remember to take the mask off, too."

"Oh! Right! I forgot I had it on." Steve pulled the cowl back and pulled her hair out so that it hung naturally.

"Why don't we just sneak in?" Danny C. asked.

"Wouldn't be right," was Ox's only reply.

Danny C. didn't push it. Part of managing a chump is knowing when to push it, and when not to push it. And anything having to do with Ox's mother was something to not push.

Ox rang the doorbell and waited. A light came on, and Mrs. Chaffee peeked out the door. "Keith! What are you doing waiting out on the doorstep?"

"Uhm, well, Ma, I didn't want to bring anyone you didn't know into the house without you sayin' it was okay."

"Someone I don't know?" Mrs. Chaffee peered past her son. "Daniel. Hmmph. Him, I know - wish I didn't, but I do." Then she saw 'Steve'. "Now, you, I don't know. Who are you?"

 

*****

Boy, is that a harder question now than it was this morning! "Uhm, Missuz Chaffee, it's kind of hard to explain-"

Dan jumped in, "Hi, Missuz Chaffee. This is St- Stephanie! She's a relative of Steve's. She-"

"Shush! I don't want to hear from you. I want to hear it from her." She gave me a long hard look. "What ARE you wearing?"

Suddenly, I was completely in control. "That's all part of the reason that I'm here at this ungodly hour. Y'see, I'm in college, and while I have a scholarship to cover my tuition and books, I still need eating money. So, I do the 'Party Person' thing - my specialty is that I dress up as Catwoman, mingle and say catty things to the guests. Anyway, I had a gig this evening, and - well, I don't want to get you involved too much. Let's just say that something happened, and things got really complicated. I'm not sure, but I think there's somebody looking for me. From what Dan here tells me, Steve was doing some kind of research, and that might have something to do with it."

Mrs. Chaffee cocked an eyebrow at me. "So what's all this about?"

"I think it has something to do with a research project of Steve's but past that, I can't say."

Mrs. Chaffee nodded iritably at Dan. "I'll lay odds that he's behind all this somehow."

I gave her a sour smile. "And I wouldn't put money against you. But right now the little weasel's our best chance of finding Steve. Or at least of getting those bozos off of our case."

Mrs. Chaffee smiled archly. "It's about damn time you ran into someone you couldn't twist around your finger." She stepped to one side. "Well, come on in. If nothing else, let me see what you look like in that costume."

I came in and shucked off the long coat that I'd had on over my Catwoman costume. Mrs. Chaffee's eyebrows almost rose up off of her head, and she gave a respectful whistle. I pulled the hood back on, and gave her my best panther prowl as a I walked back and forth. I finished off by striking a pose, whip in one hand, other hand on my hip.

"My WORD!" Mrs. Chaffee said reverently. "You certainly earn your money at those parties!" Then a hard, cynical look entered her eyes. "You Do just go to parties and make conversation, don't you?"

"YES, Missuz Chaffee, I'm NOT a hooker or a dominatrix. Also, I don't do Frat parties."

Mrs. Chaffee took me at my word, and gave a relieved sigh. Then she cast a furtive glance at my chest. "Are those real?"

I stuck my bosom out proudly. "Yep, so's the other end." I gave a rueful laugh. "The corset is a bitch, though." Actually, I wasn't wearing a corset - I didn't need one. But letting Mrs. Chaffee think that a figure like mine required a few sacrifices made her feel a tad better, both about me and about herself.

"I see. And what do you need?"

"Well, I can't go home, there might be people looking for me. And I can't go to a motel dressed like like this - if the Bad Guys don't come for me, the Cops just might. All I need is a place to sleep tonight, and maybe something to wear in the morning?"

Mrs. Chaffee nodded. "Okay, you can use the guest room." Then she glared at Dan. "YOU will sleep on the couch! And I'd better not hear anything in the night that makes me think otherwise!"

I curled a lip at Dan. "Please! Give me credit for some taste."

Mrs. Chaffee nodded approvingly, and led us up the stairs.

 

*****

Getting undressed was a very interesting experience. As the catsuit peeled off, I could view my own body from two different and distinct points of view. On one hand, it was my body, and I knew every inch of it and what it could do. That was the Catwoman part of me. On the other hand, it was a gorgeous woman's body at the very peak of athletic conditioning, with the curves that can only exist in a comic book, and I was in awe of it. That was the part of me that was still Steve Zanuck. Taking a shower was even more interesting, as the Steve part of me revelled in the sensations of running my hands over my own incredible curves, and the Catwoman side of me relearning the wonder from the Steve part of me.

And hey, if I used up all the hot water, DAN was the only one who wanted to take a shower after me.

When I got out of the shower, Dan pushed past me, and I went to the guest room. Mrs. Chaffee was waiting for me, with a nightgown all set out for me. "Stephanie?"

"Yes, Missus Chaffee?"

"How bad is this - whatever it is you're mixed up in?"

"I really couldn't say, Ma'am. I'm not really sure exactly what's going on. It could clear up tomorrow, but we might have to head out of town for a few weeks. And that's really gonna screw up my school curriculum."

"It's all that idiot Daniel's doing isn't it? I've warned Keith and Steve about him, time and again-"

"You don't have to warn me about Dan, Missus Chaffee. I have a pretty good idea of what he is. And believe me, if I can arrange it so that he has to eat his own shit for once, I'm gonna go for it."

Missuz Chaffee nodded, reassured. "Dear, just remember one thing - everything that boy says is gas. If you just don't listen to him, and figure things out on your own, you should do just fine." She gave me a measuring look. "I think it'll all turn out right, dear. You'll have to see to it yourself, but it'll be all right. Just - just make sure that Daniel doesn't talk Keith into doing anything really stupid, will you? Because he can, and he has, and he will, if you don't sit on him."

With that, she left. The part of me that was still Steve knew that Missuz Chaffee had never really liked or trusted Steve. The part of me that was Catwoman understood why.

*****

It had been a long, hard, very trying day (to say the least!), but it still took me a long time to get to sleep. And sleep was hardly a place of rest. In my dreams, I prowled along the rooftops and alleyways of Gotham City, wild, free, elusive and unstoppable. I passed through the tightest security of the most paranoid collectors like a fine mist in a stiff breeze. Gold, jewelry, fine art and all the baubles of the obscenely weathly were mine for the taking! But as I was just about to make my clean get away, HE steps in the way. At first, he's more of an over-solid shadow than a man. But then he comes more clearly into focus - The Batman. His presence almost overwhelms me - not the demonic cape or the fiendish mask, but the hard sqaure jaw, the powerful chest, the arms, the whole awesome _maleness_ of him.

I break away, and flee into the shadows that are both my home and my queendom, but he is after me in a trice. I cannot escape him - do I even really want to escape him? I wind through the Art Deco grotesqueries of the Gotham landscape, barely escaping the deadly madness of the Joker, the smug conundrums of the Riddler, the byzantine stratagems of the Penguin, the nightmarish ploys of the Scarecrow or the deadly vines of Poison Ivy. Though I desperately put all those horrors between us, He keeps coming, his mouth set in a line of steel.

Finally, he catches me, and pulls me up off my feet by my wrists. I struggle viciously to escape, but he is a force of nature, and will not be denied. I am his.

I relax into his grasp and pull myself gently to his manly chest. I look up into his stern gaze, and offer up my lips to be kissed.

He doesn't.

I brush my lips against his, and caress his cheek. Now this is the part where any sane couple is kissing as a warm up to something hotter. He came for me, and I ran away, but he chased and caught me. He has proven that he is worthy of me. Why aren't we kissing?

No, for some insane reason, he wants to take me to JAIL!

I scratch at his face, and tear the stupid bat-mask from his head. Underneath the mask, he's really Bruce Wayne. Why hadn't I seen that before? The callow 'millionaire playboy' act - not to mention the suspicious teenage boy 'Ward' - shouldn't be enough to hide that physique or that chin! But then I remember something strange - I already knew that he was Bruce Wayne under the mask - because - because he isn't real...

With a trembling hand, I reach up and pull at his face. It peels away. It isn't real. It's just paint and ink on cheap paper. His entire BODY is nothing but a drawing, done in a succession of styles! I look around, and the entire City is nothing but a chiaroscuro backdrop! I tear away at the buildings and settings, ripping them to shreds. The two-dimensional criminals who had seemed so threatening before were nothing but paper cutouts! The Joker? A paper tiger! I shredded him! Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy? Paper Dolls! I ripped them apart! Two-Face? Just a paper boogieman! I turned him into confetti! The Riddler?

But when I reached to rip up the Riddler, there was something else there. There was someone behind the smug smirk and the double-dealing, cheating, controlling facade of the Riddler. I ripped away the snide features of Edward Nygma to reveal-

Danny Coglin.

Of course. The Riddler was a cheat, who used mind games and the preconceptions of others to fool them into doing what he wanted them to, and laughed at them behind their back.

So was Danny Coglin.

That's what Catwoman has been trying to tell me all this time.

Catwoman? Tell _me_? But I AM Catwoman!

I AM Catwoman! I am Catwoman, wild, proud and free!

But Catwoman doesn't exist.

Catwoman is the wholly owned intellectual property of National Publications, Inc., and cannot be used, either in print or in image, without the express written permission of National Publications, Inc.

So, who am I?

I am Catwoman. But Catwoman doesn't exist. She's just a manifestation of various wishes and desires and kinks of men and women for over sixty years.

No, I am Steve Zanuck, bookworm, nerd, loser, and Danny Coglin's chump.

LIKE HELL!

I AM CATWOMAN! It doesn't matter if Gotham City doesn't exist! Who needs it? It doesn't matter if Batman is just a figment of Bob Kane's imagination! Hell, I'm glad to be rid of the wet blanket! And Robin, Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon, the Joker, the Penguin and the rest of them? Who cares? I AM CATWOMAN! Hear Me Roar!

*****

The last cliche was enough to snap me out of the dream. While the exact details faded, as they always do, the message was clear. Danny Coglin had set me up. His story about me having Catwoman as an image of someone who could save us all was just his brand of patented bullshit. This was his idea from the get-go. He knew that he couldn't turn himself into the Master Criminal that he'd been dreaming about for God alone knows how long, but he could change ME into a version of that Master Criminal. And a female version, one that he'd waste no time in making 'his woman', at that. The proof was the way in which I obeyed his commands last night in such a docile manner. There was no way that a ratsass like Danny C. was going to waste a wish creating a female master thief he couldn't control.

I looked around me at the room in which I had awakened, and experienced the weirdest sense of split perspective. Everything, even the everyday stuff, all had two separate and distinct associations. On one hand, it was very familiar - Missus Chaffee had put me up in this room several times. On the other hand, it was just another rinky-dink room, one of thousands that I'd been in, in Gotham City. But Gotham City didn't exist.

The split perspective kept up as I got out of bed and got dressed in the outfit that Missus Chaffee had laid out for me. On one hand, it was just getting dressed in a not particularly stylish print dress. But even as I slipped into the panties and bra, I was experiencing something completely new. The feel of the silky fabric against my suddenly very sensitive skin! How could Catwoman go around doing all those things while feeling all of that while she did it? Simple, the part of me that was Selina Kyle told Steve Zanuck, that makes it more fun!

That split perspective made breakfast much more interesting as well. On one hand, to Steve, Missus Chaffee was a woman that I'd known all my life, a familiar authority figure. On the other hand, to Catwoman, she was a harried and beaten working class hausfrau, a woman reduced to being concerned almost completely by matters of her neighborhood, her house and her only child. A woman to be vaguely pitied, but not otherwise of much interest.

Keith was one of my best friends, someone who'd stood by me for years, and someone that I would stand by in almost any crisis. But to Catwoman, he was a big, dumb, obedient lump of meat, a 'goon' who worked for people who could actually think.

And Dan? When it came to Danny C., there was no split perspective. Catwoman's cynical perspective only brought to the surface what I'd known but wouldn't admit to myself for a very long time. Danny C. was a complete and unmitigated piece of shit who had been playing me for a chump since the Third fucking Grade. My Number One priority was now getting the hell away from this sleazebag, and making sure that he could never screw with me ever again.

Unfortunately, the simplest thing to do - just hauling ass the second that his back was turned and staying as far away as humanly possible - wasn't the smartest thing to do. Right now, he's counting on the psychological edge that he had on Steve, not knowing that he'd lost that advantage. If I run, then he knows that I'm onto him, and when he catches up with me - and he will eventually catch up with me, inevitably at the absolute worst time possible - he'll lay a carefully worded command on me that I will totally tie my hands. Hell, he'll probably tell me to fall in love with him.

Nope, the smart thing to do is to stick with Danny, let him play his addle-witted games and let him weasel himself between a rock and a hard place. Then, before he can give me a direct order, I deal with him - permanently.

 

*****

I helped Mrs. Chaffee clean up after breakfast, and then went to get my Catwoman outfit. As I carefully put it in order, folding it up for travel, I suddenly noticed the belt. As with several versions of the classic Catwoman outfit, the belt was a series of dull, golden metal disks held together by chain links. But why? Sure, it looked nice, and broke up the line of the outfit, but there was something about them - I poked at one of the disks and found a seam. I pried it open, and sure enough, there was a small electronic device with an inductive interface - an electronic lock bypass. The belt was a utility belt. Well, of course! Catwoman couldn't rumble with Batman for as long as she has without picking up on the usefulness of one. I checked the other disks, remembering exactly what each gizmo was the second that I laid eyes on it. And in the fourth disk, I found the keys to my - that is, Steve Zanuck's - apartment.

Carrying the Catwoman outfit in a shopping bag, I went downstairs and thanked Mrs. Chaffee for letting us stay the night. "Just remember what we talked about."

I looked at Danny. "Not to worry, Missuz Chaffee. It's very much on my mind."

Once we were back in the pickup, Danny took charge again. "Okay, our priorities are - First, we break into Steve's apartment, and we get all the research stuff that we left there."

"Not to worry, Dan." I interrupted him in mid-scheme. "I found the key to my apartment in the belt of my costume."

"What? Why didn't you TELL me?"

"I just found it half an hour ago. It turns out that those gold disks are a utility belt."

"Utility Belt?" Danny's eyebrows shot up. "Well, that makes things simpler. Then, on to the next step - we gather up some operating capital."

"Operating capital?" Keith asked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, how are we going to get the rest of the Menorah, if we don't have any money to work with?"

"The Menorah? Why do you want the rest of the Menorah?"

"Ox, we can't change Steve back without the other six pieces of the Menorah. The pieces that we have will only grant a user ONE wish and I think it's one of those things where only the person who made the wish can undo it. So, in order to get Steve back, I have to wish him back. And for that, I need the rest of the Menorah."

"But we don't know WHERE the rest of the pieces are!"

"Keith," I interrupted, "there were a lot of notes among the research that I had that didn't make any sense, at least not in context with the geological surveys and stuff. I think this 'LeFabre' guy was also on the trail of the other pieces, and those notes were his clues as to their whereabouts."

"Oh. So, where are they?"

"I'm not exactly sure where they are, but I'm pretty sure that at least some of them are in Europe right now."

"Europe?" Keith yelped. "How the hell are we gonna get to fucking Europe?"

"Why, First Class, of course." Danny smirked. "That's why we need to scare up operating capital."

"And how are we gonna do that?"

Danny gave me a knowing leer. "We have Catwoman on our side. How do you think we're going to do it?"

 

*****

Wearing the Catsuit was like waking up. It was like I knew who I was again. I flowed up the side of the building like a wisp of smoke. Twelfth floor, third window from the northwest corner. I'd come to the building earlier that afternoon, posing as a Process Server, delivering a bullshit supoena, and got to see the inner office, so I was sure that this was the place. For a jewelry fence, his security was pretty second rate - a wired window, heat and motion sensors, a couple of pressure pads under the carpet, and three electric eyes in front of his safe. I took care of them without even half thinking about them.

Of course, the heavy security was focused on the obvious safe that held the cash and gems that he dealt with in his legitimate trade; the safe that held the hot stones and traceless cash that he used in his illegitimate trade relied much more on secrecy. Danny C. told me that this guy had a reputation for being able to cover over the laser inscribing that identifies most precious stones these days, so he did a brisk business in 'laundering' hot rocks. The safe had about thirty grand in cash, and there's no way that I could tell how much worth in various stones. I emptied the safe, on the simple premise that while I doubted that we could safely sell all of those stones, we could throw off anyone trying to track them by simply losing a packet of them someplace. Anyone who found them would try to sell them; if the hounds went after them, well that's rather the point. If not - well, that would be their good fortune.

Danny C. had made a point of telling his contacts that he was heading out to New York, and had holed up in a ritzy hotel there. I had stayed behind and waited for three days to pull this job. Before he left, Danny had made a point of spelling out precisely what I was supposed to do, and carefully closed any loopholes that I could have used to wriggle out from under his thumb. All this was because the fence was very well connected, and Danny didn't want a major job to go down just before he blew town. As I understood, he was already lining up a buyer for the stones.

I climbed to the top of the building and used the power lines to cross the street and travel down the block. I felt great, running through the night, powerful, wild and free! And yet, there was a part of me that regretted that a dark, batwing-caped figure wouldn't manifest from out of the darkness, to add the thrill of the chase to it all.

Keith was waiting in the pickup a couple of blocks away. We drove back to his house, and had a cab waiting to take us to the airport, where I called Danny at his hotel in New York to let him know we were on the way with the jewels. As I settled into the shuttle flight's First Class seat, I mused that it had been too easy, that I wanted a bigger challenge. But then, up to now, we'd lived in a pretty rinky-dink burg. I was headed to New York, the real life inspiration for Gotham City. The part of me that was still Steve was terrified at leaving his Zone of Safety; the part that was Catwoman just yawned and said 'Bring it on'.

 

*****

Danny met us at JFK International in style. I looked at the Armani suit, the gold Rolex and the stretch limo. "Maxing out the old credit card, are we, Dan?"

"Not to worry, I have it covered."

My Bullshit Alarm went off with three alarms and a klaxon. 'I have it covered' usually means that he's done something stupid or reckless or reprehensible or all three.

We got in, Danny told the driver to head for downtown, and then he shut the frosted glass partition. "So, how did you do?"

I handed him the stack of bills. "I also took about five pounds worth of diamonds, rubies and emeralds."

Danny nodded and took the stack. You could tell that he was getting off on being the High Roller. He flipped through the stack of bills and counted them. "Thirty thou? He only had thirty thou in his safe?"

"My, aren't we getting grand? That's more than you've ever seen in your life, and we both know it. He only had thirty K in his secret safe. I assume that he kept the money and gems that he could explain to the cops and the IRS in his obvious office safe."

"Why didn't you crack that one, too?"

"You didn't tell me to. Besides, if I ripped off that safe, he could have gone to the Cops. This way, he's too busy watching his back to set anyone on us. Besides, thirty thousand in cash and five pounds in precious gems is pretty damn good for an independent fence working in a second rate burg." I did a little mental math. Five pounds of gems; figure an average of maybe $250 a carat; there's 5 carats to the gram, and 454 grams to the pound, so that's five hundred and sixty-something thousand dollars. While Danny might be a penny-ante crook, he's an experienced penny-ante crook, so he should get maybe twenty cents on the dollar. And New York is both the legitimate and illegitimate diamond center of North America, so he should be able to arrange the deal.

If they don't just slit his throat. But somehow, I just don't think that my luck is running that way these days. "So, what are you beefing about? You're going to clear at least a hundred K on this - that's a lot of money for just sitting around on your duff for three days."

"And what makes you think that I've just been sitting around?"

"Years of personal experience."

"Which just goes to show that you don't know me as well as you thought. I've been making the rounds, meeting the people that know the people."

"And exactly HOW would a third rate little hustler like you know who to talk to?"

"Mind your manners. And I wasn't just spinning my wheels back home - I was always picking up on a name here, a name there. I just didn't have anything to take to them yet." Danny slid a critical look over both Keith and me. "Speaking of which, there's something that we have to take care of, before we go to the hotel."

While he may be a small-time punk, I'll have to give him this - Danny C. isn't a cheap punk. He blew somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve thousand getting Keith and me outfitted to play the parts of High-Class muscle and High Rent Ornament to his Big Time Operator. But then, Danny always did spend his money freely, when he had it.

As we entered the hotel lobby, I could tell that Danny was living the dream and strutting like a rooster. He was finally the Big Shot Wheeler-Dealer, making the scene with a drop dead gorgeous babe on his arm and a primo bodyguard at his back. God, I wanted to deck him just then.

Danny had taken an entire suite, with Hot and Cold running excess. I threw the mink wrap on the couch and then threw myself on the wrap. "Okay, so you're a bigshot. Now what do we do?"

Danny opened up a bottle of champagne. But then, he would - it's what a bigshot Master Criminal would do on TV. "First things first - we acquire more operating capital."

"More?" Keith asked. "But those diamonds that Steve got will bring a bundle!"

"Guys, we need information. Information costs money. Information about the kind of big wheels that will have the rest of the pieces of the Menorah will cost a lot of money. And reliable information about those guys costs MAJOR bucks."

"Yeah, and suites at high class hotels like this cost money, too," I groused. "By the way, shouldn't you pay the hotel for the nights that you already spent here? I mean, your credit card can't keep taking this kind of abuse!"

"Not to worry! I have it covered!" And another chill went down my spine. "I have a couple of jobs already lined up for Catwoman. That should kill any money worries that we might have for a while. In the meantime, Steve can finish up researching LeFabre's notes for clues as to who might have the rest of the pieces. Speaking of which, Steve, didn't you say that you needed some references that you couldn't find back home?"

"Sure - mostly modern reports on the whereabouts of various antiquities and collectibles. Collectors and dealers often barter objects of value for each other instead of cash, so there's a chance that I might be able to figure out who has what from those. Or at least get an idea."

"Give Ox a list of the reports that you'll need, and the addresses of where he can get them."

"Uhn? Why me?" Keith asked.

"Ox, the way I have this set up, people are going to think that Steve is my girlfriend. I want them to think that, 'cause if they think that she's just here to keep me happy, then they won't be thinking that she's either a researching wizard or master burglar. If she goes in person, you just know that she'll talk shop. And a woman who looks like she does, who can talk to those people on their own terms is someone who gets remembered and talked about. We don't want that. But if I send you with a shopping list, then they just think that I'm sending some errand boy."

I marveled at how well Danny C. had Keith trained. Keith didn't even pick up on the fact that he really was just an errand boy to Danny. I looked back at how Danny had treated me in the past, and I got the disquieting impression that, if anything, I was worse. I jotted down a list of some twenty texts, and at least eight places to check out for them.

I could tell that Danny was sending Keith out on a fool's errand, and I had a pretty good idea why. I wasn't terribly happy about it, but I figured that it was something that we'd best get over and done with as soon as possible.

As Danny gave Keith a few last minute 'suggestions', I slipped into the bathroom and got out my hygiene kit. I took out the diaphragm that I'd bought back home - I've been expecting this since the first day - squeezed a little spermicide onto it, and carefully inserted it.

Okay, you don't need to be Fellini to see that Danny sent Keith off on his errand to get me alone so that he could 'have his way with me'. He's been thinking about it ever since he saw me in Selina Kyle's body, and it really registered that he'd turned me into a beautiful woman. He probably felt that he needed to do it, his 'manhood' demanded it. I was his property, and he wanted to make sure that I knew it. He could order me to do it, so there was no way around it

But that didn't mean that I had to let the fucker win. He'd been scoring off of me for most of our lives, but that wasn't going to last very much longer. Okay, Steve can't handle this, but Selina should have some idea. I shifted over into my Catwoman mindset. As Catwoman, my reaction to the idea of having sex with Danny C. was, 'Enh. So What? Just another loser with delusions of grandeur'. As I thought about it, I - as Catwoman - had dealt with buttheads like him before. At least I had in some versions of my past, particularly the one where I'd been a hooker and dominatrix-

Dominatrix.

Of course.

Danny C. was afraid of me. He's the sort of weaselly little loser who's afraid of confident, powerful women. He needs to have sex with me, to make me have sex with him, in order to reassure himself that he's in charge. He wants the sex to be demeaning, and he wants to be completely in charge. He wants to have the fact that he can make me have sex with him at any time as something that he can use against me.

But that only works if I'm Steve Zanuck, having sex with a man against my will.

Oh yeah, I'm going to enjoy this!

When I walked out of the bathroom, Danny was sitting on a couch, sipping some champagne, and giving me what he probably thought was a smoldering glance. I fixed him with my eyes, put a confident smirk on my face and sashayed over to where he was sitting. He started to say something, probably to come over and sit beside him. I beat him to the punch and settled myself into his lap. That took the wind out of his sails! I looked him in the eyes and said, "Well? What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?"

He began to pucker, but I beat him to the punch again, and mashed my mouth against his. I kept this up, constantly one step ahead of him, keeping the initiative as we moved from the common area into the bedroom. He kept trying to take the initiative, but that's hard to do when the woman that you're trying to force yourself on insists on giving you what you think you want. I stripped his clothes off of him, rubbing myself all over him. Hey, with a body like mine brushing up against him, even Danny's barely subdued panic attack couldn't keep his 'junior member' from coming to attention.

I rode him like we were charging the cannons at Balaclava, and unlike Lord Cardigan's Light Brigade, I sent my steed into the fray time after time. Finally, I wore him out, and had him cringing from my loud demands for more. When he wouldn't play anymore, I casually sauntered into the bathroom and took a nice long bath. When I came back out, Danny had quietly snuck out. I stretched out on the satin sheets and let myself drowse.

Danny wasn't the greatest lover, (at least not by Catwoman's standards, but by definition, those are WAY out of synch with reality), but at least my little romp with him had taught me one thing. I like sex. I let myself wonder what knocking boots with a guy who wasn't a greasy little weasel like Danny Coglin would be like.

 

*****

Now I was having serious fun. The flat was on the 11th floor of an apartment building that prided itself on its level of security. I had reason to believe that the owner of the condo, a lesser relation of the Mellons and the DuPonts, had a sizable collection of stolen art inside that flat. He was what fences call a 'Hoarder', an art lover who didn't care if his treasures were stolen, because he was willing to enjoy them in the privacy of a hidden vault. This man had a legitimate collection of Dutch Old Masters and the Italian Baroque Masters (hey, don't ask me to explain it, it's a disease caused by having too much money), but Danny C. had found out that he'd shelled out a couple of hundred grand for a Watteau that had been lifted two years earlier from the Rjiksmuseum in Rotterdam.

The security in the building was as tight as Scrooge's purse, but Mister Art Lover had made one rather silly mistake. One of thing about paintings, especially paintings done on the canvas that Van Rjin and Co. had used, is that canvas is acidic. If it's allowed to, it gets brittle and starts to denature the paints, altering the shades. This is, by the way, one of the simpler methods that museums use to spot forgeries. Also, mold dust and other urban air pollutants are murder on the oil paints. I mention this, because it generally means that paintings like this need to be kept in cool, dry air. And Mister Art Lover had Two air conditioners on the roof of the building, one for his own comfort, and the other for his vault. And that's how I got past all the security.

No, I didn't crawl through the air conditioning ducts. In reality, air ducts aren't that big, for the simple reason that the people who make air conditioning ducts have seen the same movies and TV shows that you have.

However, the air conditioning maintenance hatches are another thing. They have locks, but the security on them is significantly lower than the more obvious entry points. Also, the air conditioning was key to getting around the motion detectors that Mister Art Lover no doubt had going in the vault. While he couldn't have a security guard watching video monitors of paintings that he should have (and shouldn't be able to afford), he could have motion detectors. Motion detectors work by running a laser beam across the guarded area and if the laser flickers because of a change in air temperature caused by body heat, it goes off. But, if you slowly increase the internal temperature, then the lasers have nothing to detect. A little hard on the objets d'art, but then they wouldn't have to put up with it for very long.

While I called it a 'vault', it didn't have the armored door or ultra-heavy lock that I generally associate with vaults. The door was thick and the lock was pretty good, but I still breezed through it like it was barely there. Hey, what can I say? I'm GOOD at this!

Once inside, I was actually impressed. While he didn't have any Rembrants or Vermeers, he had the Watteau, three Eeckouts, a Honthorst, four Bruggens, and two Bloemaerts. Hmm. No Italian Baroque; it must be a stiff market on Italian Baroque these days. There was a few million dollars worth of oils here; being a useless Insurance company executive must pay GOOD! Making sure of the contact alarms, I took the paintings down and got them out of their frames. I sprayed the surfaces of the paintings with a coating would make the oils flexible for a short time without crackling the finish, and removed them from their stretchers. I rolled them up and replaced the canvases with ones that I thought Mister Art Lover really deserved: big-eyed crying clown Elvises on black velvet. I'd thought about those tacky paintings of alley cats, but that would be tempting fate.

Getting out of the building and back to the hotel was just as hard as getting in, in the first place. Contrary to what you see on TV, people running across rooftops tend to be rather conspicuous, especially if they're wearing skin-tight leather catsuits. And people climbing up the sides of buildings tend to attract attention, too. Man, I miss Gotham City.

I changed into street clothing a couple blocks away from the hotel, and started to give serious thought to carving out a big honking slice of freedom for myself.

Now, Danny had buyers lined up for four of these things - the Watteau, an Eeckout, a Bruggens, and the Honthorst. The rest were pure gravy. And I just thought of a way to cut down on Danny's gravy, and actually do the right thing for a change, while still technically staying inside the lines of Danny's orders. I unrolled my swag and removed one of the Bloemaerts, a Bruggens and the other Eeckout. I carefully stashed them inside a FedEx box, and dropped it off at the Dutch Consulate.

*****

"WHAT? You just Gave Away three Dutch Masters?" Danny yelled incredulously.

"Of course, Danny. It's a smart move."

"Oh? And HOW is giving away at least a Million Dollars worth of Art, a _Smart Move_?"

"Danny, Danny, Danny - YOU of all people should know that the Black Market in Art is just another marketplace, ruled like every other marketplace by the Laws of Supply and Demand. Right now, the only people who are interested in the Old Masters are the ones who are always interested. The market in Dutch Masters is stagnant and moribund. If - no, When - the publicity about the mysterious return of the 'Lost Masters' hits the tabes, general interest in the Dutch Renaissance will go way up, and so will the price for Dutch Masters. And let's face it - most people have never even heard of Bloemaerts or Bruggens. But when the publicity hits, all sorts of people will, so the ones that we still have will skyrocket in asking price." I gave Danny a smoldering look. "Let's face it - it's a class move. And we're supposed to be a class outfit, right?" Hey, that was my story, and I planned to stick with it.

Danny gave me a searching glower. He knew that I was jiving him, but I was pitching the story that he was selling, and he didn't want to admit that he was a cheap punk under all his BS. But he still had a few cards up his sleeve. He sent Keith off on another fool's errand. Once Keith was out of the way, Danny stalked over and leaned over me, trying to browbeat me. Chump.

He glared straight into my eyes. "Steve, do you want to know why giving those paintings back was a bad move?" I just smirked up at him. "Do you want to know how we could afford this hotel and these clothes?"

I gave him a pussycat smile. "Well, you know what they say - 'curiosity killed the cat'."

"We could afford this, because I took out a rather large mortgage on Mrs. Chaffee's house back home and transferred the money into a phony corporate account."

Okay, that wiped the grin off of my face. "What? How? There is NO WAY on God's Green Earth that Missuz Chaffee would let you anywhere near the title to her house!"

Danny grinned, and I had an unpleasant faux-memory flashback to a couple of encounters with the Joker. "No, SHE wouldn't, but I managed to finagle it so that Ox signed a Power of Attorney over to me a few years back. I took out the loan in his name. And I think that a 35% per annum interest rate on 150 thousand is reasonable, don't you?"

"THIRTY FIVE PERCENT? On a Hundred and Fifty THOUSAND? Are you insane? We've probably run up a couple of thousand in interest already! Pay it off!"

Danny walked over to a chair, leaned back and poured himself a glass of champagne. "Why?"

"WHY? Because that house is all that Missuz Chaffee HAS! She can't afford to pay rent on her pension! If she loses the house, she'll be destitute!"

Danny smirked at me. "So? How is this any skin off of MY ass? I mean, it's not like she ever had any use for me, y'know."

I stalked over to him and snarled, "Listen up, Coglin, you got at least that much from the gems that I got for you. Use your take to kill that loan."

"Oh? Or what?"

"Or I'll rip your face off and wipe my ass with it!"

He smirked at me, enjoying himself hugely, "Oh, Please! We both know that if you could do that, you would have done it days ago! You can't hurt me in any way shape or form; that's how I worded my Wish."

"Oh? How about this? What say I tell Keith about this, and let HIM reach down your throat and rip out what passes for your heart?"

Danny gave me that 'Joker' grin again. "I hereby formally command you to NOT tell Ox about this little arrangement." Well, technically, I could argue that all that meant is that I not tell any oxen that I might come across, but the stricture still held. Danny grinned even wider. "Keep this in mind, Sugarbumps - YOU are the Genie, and _I_ am the Master. Now, be a good genie and go get me something to eat."

I leaned back, crossed my arms and gave him a measuring glance. Maybe there's more to Danny C. than I thought. Maybe he really does have a seed of real evil in him. But all that means is that I'm going to have to put him down HARD, not just get away from him.

I shot him a snarky smile. "Very Well, Oh Lord and Master, but might I point something out to you?"

"Oh? What's that?"

"You're screwing up, shithead."

"How?"

"You're wasting too much time here in New York, playing Criminal Mastermind. In the past ten days, we have dumped three pounds of precious gems, a prototype computer game, that gold Hindu idol, four pieces of Empress Jade, and now seven Old Masters onto the Black Market. Do you honestly think that this isn't being noticed? Danny, did it ever occur to you that the only reason that you're getting all these 'fantastic jobs' is that they're Sucker Deals? Anybody with half a brain would be asking FOUR TIMES for what I stole! You got the preliminaries for the simple reason that nobody thought that you could pull it off!"

"Yeah, but I DID." He gloated.

"NO, _I_ did. Now people are going to start asking themselves 'who is this bozo who can pull off heists through incredibly stiff security, and then asks chump change for them?' They're going to start asking questions, and the word will get around. And LeFabre will hear about it; that is, if he hasn't already."

At the mention of the name 'LeFabre', the gloating smirk on Danny's face melted away. "But how would he link us up to the guys who ripped him off?"

I grinned down at him. "Hey, if I ever get spotted, even ONCE, the newspapers will scream 'Real Life Catwoman!' And LeFabre will know exactly who it is, and he'll probably have a pretty good idea of exactly what's going down."

"But you won't get spotted. I order you to never be seen in your Catwoman get-up."

"You talk like it was all up to me! But I can't control everything, especially when I'm concentrating on not getting caught! And don't worry, I'm not gonna let myself get caught - I have my own reasons for not wanting LeFabre to find us."

"Which are?"

"Well, as amusing as it would be to watch his goons break every bone in your body, I can't trust the man to restrain his vindictiveness to just you. A man like that would probably order his men to 'make examples' of both Keith and me. But there IS a way to get out from under this."

Danny narrowed his eyes. "Well? What is it? I ORDER you to tell me!"

I expected my mouth to open and for it to come pouring out. But it didn't. I raised my eyebrows. "Well! It looks like your control over me isn't complete! You must have screwed up when you 'worded' that wish! I don't know exactly how this works, but this puts a whole new spin on our relationship, doesn't it MASTER?"

I stood and balanced myself to deliver a roundabout kick to Danny's head, but it didn't work. So, I still couldn't hurt him. Interesting. Danny picked up on it, and sprang up out of his seat, swinging a fist at my head. I couldn't hit him, but I sure could _dodge_ him. We danced around for a bit, until Danny-boy was out of breath. I, of course, was still fresh as a daisy.

Danny collapsed on the sofa, gasping. I grinned down at him. It was beginning to dawn on him that the 'Big Time' was just as cutthroat as the street was, only more so. And while his ego wouldn't let him admit it, way down deep, he had to know that he was just a penny-ante grifter with a gimmick (that would be ME). But LeFabre was the Real McCoy, a genuine big league shark. The immensity of his blunder was finally coming home to him. I saw an opening. It would still take us where I wanted to go, but it would do Missuz Chaffee some good in the meantime. "Okay, I'll make a deal with you."

"What?" he rasped, still out of breath.

"I want your word that you'll kill the mortgage on Missuz Chaffee's house; then I'll tell you how to get out from under this."

"Okay, you have my word."

"Oh, like I'd really take your word on it." I went to the suite's safe, opened it, and took out the four pieces of the Menorah. I took the pieces into the sitting room and assembled them. I held the partial Menorah out to Danny. "Swear on this. Swear by the binding that you placed on me."

Hesitantly, Danny stretched out his hand. "I swear."

"Say it, Idiot! Spell it out, or I'm out the door, and I let LeFabre rip you apart!"

He spelled it all out, and (prompted by Yours Truly) swore by the names of God and Solomon and Abraham that he'd redeem the mortgage on Mrs. Chaffee's house, or lose all of his power over me.

The Menorah hummed and gave a flash. "Well, I think that settles that. Now, unless you want to deal with LeFabre all on your own - cause if you back out, I'll split and take Keith with me - you'll part with some of that major cash, and repay Mrs. Chaffee's mortgage."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll give the old bat her fucking house back! Now, how do I get away from LeFabre?"

I draped myself across the sofa. "Well, it's obvious that LeFabre won't forgive you if you simply return the Menorah - a man like that can't afford to let a punk like you rip him off. If nothing else, it might give the hired help the idea that he was going soft."

"Yeah? So?"

"So, the only way to buy him off is to offer him something that he couldn't get on his own, something that he wants even more than these pieces of the Menorah."

"And what's that?"

"The entire Menorah."

"The entire Menorah? But we don't KNOW where the rest of the pieces of the Menorah ARE!"

"Not yet, but I have a few very good ideas from LeFabre's notes. And besides, we have a major advantage that LeFabre never picked up on."

"Oh? And what's that?"

I picked up the Menorah and waggled it at him. "This. There are a few rather cryptic passages in Von Diedenau's journal that suggest that he used the first piece that he had to help him find the rest of the central stem of the Menorah, and once he had that, he used that to find the rest of it. Dan, there are four pieces of a Djinn bound into this thing - the Djinn wants to be whole, and it calls out to the other pieces. I'll have to figure out exactly how to do it, but it will help a lot, if parts have been lost or hidden and forgotten."

"So, what do we do now?"

"Now, we stop fucking around playing Professor Moriarity, get those passports and visas that you've been yapping about, and go to Europe. According to LeFabre's notes, one of his biggest rivals in this treasure hunt is an ex-STASSI officer named Von Brunstedt. If anyone has or knows the whereabouts of the other pieces, it's Von Brunstedt. Von Brunstedt operates out of Paris."

Danny perked up a bit at the mention of Paris. Suddenly, he was living the dream again. He was traveling to the City of Lights in search of an ancient treasure. He was a big shot on the prowl again, not a sniveling little hustler worried for his life. Christ, he was pathetic. "Well!" He straightened himself up. "First we take care of a few jobs that I committed to-"

"NO. We have enough money, Danny. I'll pull one LAST job here, just to keep everyone off guard. But after that, it's off to Gay Paree. But first-" I picked up the Menorah and waggled it at him again. "The mortgage. Unless you'd like to hunt for the rest on your own."

Danny smarled at me, but wasted no time in transferring the money. He's not THAT kind of fool.

 

*****

The last job was a matter of separating a Roublev ikon from the Russian Mob goon that was keeping company with it. The security wasn't that hard, it was mostly a matter that no one wanted to cross the goon. Not that he'd come looking for us - the files and tapes that I lifted from his safe and sent to the FBI should give him better things to do than go looking for us.

As we had before, Danny made a production of leaving town and flying First Class up to Montreal a couple of days before I took the Russian for his ikon, leaving Keith and me behind in a small anonymous hotel. When he checked into his hotel in Montreal, Danny had a lovely 'professional escort' on his arm with my coloring (and MY mink stole! *Pffiitt!!*). And again, Keith accompanied me - Tourist - on the train to rejoin Danny. On the way there, I couldn't tell Keith half of the things that I wanted to, but I wasn't alone in that. Keith definitely had something that he wanted to tell me, but for some reason, it wasn't coming out. I wondered what vile trick Danny had pulled on HIM?

 

*****

From Montreal, we flew to Dublin, Ireland. I got our pieces of the Menorah through Customs without being noticed by putting hooks on two of the pieces and wearing them as earrings, and stringing the largish center piece and the base piece on a chain and wearing it as jewelry. It was too big with the gold settings to look anything other than faux - trendy garish. Danny spent a week or so in Ireland perpetuating several rather noxious stereotypes about Irish-American tourists and then we took a ferry across the North Channel to Scotland. From Scotland, we used Britain's lovely railways down to London, where Danny had me pick up a few 'trinkets' (don't ask) 'to tide us over', while he perpetuated more American Tourist stereotypes. When he was through checking out the changing of the Guards, and getting fitted for Saville Row suits, we took the Chunnel over to France, and over (finally) to Paris, where he inflicted yet more American Tourist stereotypes on the French.

*****

We were sitting in a sidewalk cafe on the Left Bank. The Left freaking BANK! Who goes to the Left Bank anymore? Oh well, at least Danny wasn't wearing a beret or ordering absinthe...

Even so, he glared at me. "You know, if we had stayed in New York, I _might_ have been able to use my contacts to find out about Von Brunstedt."

"Yeah, and if LeFabre didn't catch up with us, then your blundering around would have alerted Von Brunstedt that you were interested in him."

"Oh? Then tell me, Miss Bigshot Catburglar, HOW do we find him in order to get his pieces of the Menorah? Von Brunstedt's ex-STASSI; he's a professional. He lasted for fifteen years in the East German secret police, and another fifteen and change since the fall of the Berlin Wall dealing in the Black Market. Let's face it, we're dealing with him on his turf, on his terms. We might as well sell him our pieces of the Menorah and send a message to LeFabre that we did so. It'll get him off our backs, and we'll pick up a few quick million at the same time."

I glared at Danny over my Chablis. "Idiot. What makes you think that Von Brunstedt won't just shoot us rather than hand over the money, or the LeFabre would leave us alone even if Von Brunstedt ponied up? The only way to get LeFabre off our backs is to cut a deal - the _entire_ Menorah for a clean slate."

"And what makes you think that LeFabre will honor that deal, even if he agrees to it?"

"Simple, Simpleton - we make him swear to it on the Menorah. Odds are that he's going to wish for his youth back or something like it. If he breaks an oath sworn on the Menorah, he chances losing his new youth."

"Okay, so what's our first step?"

"Well, obviously, the first thing that we want to do is get Von Brunstedt's pieces, and any research that he might have. Von Brunstedt strikes me as the kind who knows where the other pieces are, or at least where the known pieces are. Besides, if we went looking for the other pieces, Brunstedt would probably hear about it, and be waiting for us"

"And how do we get THAT, seeing as how we don't know where Von Brunstedt IS or what kind of security he has?"

"Simple - we ask Les Cops."

"What? What makes you think that we could get information from the Seurete?"

I shook my head amusedly. "Not the Seurete; nobody talks to them. No, we dig through the files of the people that everybody talks to, if they know what's good for them - INTERPOL."

"INTERPOL?" A touch of that street-weasel that I knew and loathed peeked through Dan's Saville Row veneer. "Jeez, I don't know - INTERPOL is really major league!"

I blew through my lips exasperatedly. "God's Teeth! And I thought that _I_ lived in a comic book! Danny Boy, INTERPOL isn't a super-spy network. It doesn't have any police powers, it doesn't investigate crimes, and it doesn't field any agents. INTERPOL is strictly a clearinghouse for information on criminals between the police services of member nations. But that's what makes them so perfect - information is all they DO."

"Okay, but how do we get our hands on the information?"

I waggled my eyebrows at him over the rim of my wineglass. "Leave it to Catwoman, Wally."

 

*****

Three days later, Danny came back from 'casing' the Louvre, just in case he saw a weakness in the security for the Mona Lisa (Yeah, Right!). I was sprawled out on the chaise lounge in the sitting room, surrounded by twelve document cases. "What the HELL is all this?"

"The INTERPOL files on Von Brunstedt. Don't get too scared - most of this is duplication; there are files here in French, English, German, Italian, and Polish."

"How the HELL did you get all of this out of INTERPOL headquarters?"

"Actually, that I owe more to the part of me that's still Steve than it is to the part that's Catwoman. I just went to a local police station and plugged into their computer network. I claimed that I was waiting for Superintendent So-and-so, and needed to get a little work done on my laptop. I sent a request to INTERPOL for a listing of the documents on file regarded Von Brunstedt and known associates. Once I had that, I just posted an internal request for the physical records to be moved from the archives. The next day, I went to INTERPOL headquarters, and started playing memo-hockey. I had the porters moving this stack of crates around so much that they finally gave up on it."

"Yeah, yeah - very devious. But how did you get all of this OUT of INTERPOL?"

"I'm ashamed of you, Danny! It's the oldest trick in the book! I just went in with a hand truck and a clipboard full of official looking documents, loaded up the crates, and walked right out with them. Hell, I even got the door security guard to help me load the damn things into the taxi!"

Danny looked sourly around the sitting room. Digging around a mountain of paperwork was not part of his 'Master Criminal' fantasy. "So, we have Von Brunstedt's records - So What?"

"Three things: One, stashed away in here is everything that INTERPOL - and by extension, the police departments of Europe, Asia and the Americas - knows about Von Brunstedt and his people. Beaucoup valuable. Two, besides the inside dope on Von Brunstedt and his people, there are files about his known business associates and enemies. I should be able to suss out a few clues as to where other pieces that Von Brunstedt doesn't have from that. Third, after I've made copies of all this stuff, we're gonna sell it to Von Brunstedt."

"What? Why? We don't even want Von Brunstedt to know that we're alive!"

"No, we don't want Von Brunstedt to know that _I'm_ alive. We want him to know that you are a rising new star in the black market, and what better way to get his attention than to prove that you're slick enough to rip off INTERPOL and sharp enough to realize the he'd want to know what INTERPOL had on him. The less that he's aware that I even exist, the better."

"But why does he have to know that _I'm_ around?"

"Dan, we're going to have to do some maneuvering here in Paris. Eventually, either Von Brunstedt or his competitors are going to get wind that you're nosing around. We need an acceptable context for you to be looking for Von Brunstedt. This way, it looks like you're just trying to get in good with an established operator as a way of taking your own career to the next level. When he contacts you, I can track his contact man back to Herr Von Brunstedt. Once we know where he is, we can got to the next stage and start planning what we'll do next."

Danny looked at the stacks of crates. "And what am _I_ supposed to do while you dig through all of this?"

"Dig out your tux and brush up on your manners. Cash out a couple of hundred Grand in Traveler's Checks and have a good time throwing it away at Le Cercle D'Tychee."

"Le Circle D'Tie-Kee? Wuzzat?"

"It's a local nightclub-cum-casino. These reports list it as a favorite venue for the local bigwigs - legit and otherwise - to meet with each other, see who's talking to whom, scope out each other's mistresses, score subtle bon mots off each other, and like that. A lot of contacts are made there, but no real Biz. That's always done somewhere else. Don't expect anything the first night; that only happens in Spy Movies. Just circulate, schmooze, and get to know people. You know what I mean; just do what you used to do back home when you didn't have anything on the burner. Just do it with a little class this time, hunh?"

Danny looked at me, miffed. "Gee, would it be asking too much of my meager talents if I checked the place out for Von Brunstedt or any of his pals?"

"Sure, why not? Here are photos of Eigen Von Brunstedt himself. This close up was taken ten years ago; this one was taken nine months ago. This guy is Tristan Braudin, his personal bodyguard. Whatever you do, if you see Braudin DO NOT try anything cute around him. According to his file, he holds several belts in various Martial Arts, and he's an expert knife fighter. This guy is Anatol Van Djaas, Von Brunstedt's Right Hand Man. Stay away from him, he's smarter than you are." I paused, looked at the photo. "Come to think of it, he's probably smarter than _I_ am."

"So, maybe we should arrange something to keep the clever Minheer Von Djass busy for a while?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Sparky. Von Brunstedt is ex-STASSI; he was Russian-trained, and paranoid as hell. If his Good Right Hand sudden gets put in a cast just as a brash young American upstart shows up on the scene, Von Brunstedt is just the type to get all cagey." I handed him another photo. "This is Ferrat. No first name, just Ferrat. He's Von Brunstedt's 'people person'. He does meetings, negotiates, and is a pretty good Con Artist. These are Halliday, an Englishman, ex-race car driver, and Naismith, a Scot, ex-SAS. Von Brunstedt has other people, but that's his Inner Circle."

"Any steady girlfriends for any of these guys?"

"They come, they go, nothing steady, and these guys don't do anything incriminating in front of les femmes."

Danny grinned. "Well then! Maybe we could arrange for you to join the rotation."

"NO."

"But if you could-"

"Too much effort, too little gain, and Van Djass runs a background check on all of the women that get picked as ornaments. Besides, I already know where Von Brunstedt keeps his pieces."

"You do? How? Where?"

"At Le Banque Commercial Premier de Paris. They're in a Safe Deposit box in their basement vault. And according to the nice man who was trying to rent me a box, the exterior of the vault is 30 millimeters of scandium alloy steel, surrounded by twelve feet of reinforced concrete, just in case anyone gets the bright idea to tunnel in, like those guys did back in the Sixties. The vault door is three feet of tool steel, with a tamper-proof timer lock. Forget Catwoman or Batman - Superman couldn't get into that thing!"

"But how did you find them?"

"Simple, Simpleton - I used the bits of the Menorah that we have, and triangulated their position. They also gave me a pretty good idea of where the other major collection of pieces is."

"There's another group of them? Here in Paris? Where?"

"Fenninger's et Fils. It's a security vault service. Not as nasty as Le Banque Commercial Premier de Paris, but still a very tough nut to crack. AND, if we tried anything, it would probably tip off Von Brunstedt."

"So, to whom do you think they belong?"

"The only one that I'm absolutely sure of is LeFabre. According to LeFabre's notes, there are several groups currently at play in the contest for the Menorah - LeFabre, Von Brunstedt, a small group of Neo-Nazi mystics that are apparently all that's left of Thule Gemeinshaft (or at least all that we know about), a professor of Theology at the Sorbonne named Pernelle, a guy named Foscarelli who's apparently a wheel in the Union Corse, a Jesuit Priest named Abbe Valere, and an extremely wealthy Englishman named Whitcroft. The professor strikes me as the most likely person to both have acquired that many pieces and to be storing them at Fenninger's."

"If LeFabre, Von Brunstedt and this Professor guy have the lion's share of the pieces, where do all these other people come in?"

"Well, in the grand old tradition of the Maltese Falcon, it seems that individual pieces are sold, traded and stolen from each other on a pretty regular basis. Also, still in keeping with Mister Chandler's masterpiece, it seems that there are many forged pieces floating around, some only slightly newer than the true Menorah itself. In LeFabre's notes, there are five very thick books all trying to verify identifying marks for both the True Pieces, and for known forgeries. It seems that there's a sort of micro-economy in trading the various forged pieces around. And why not? They're all made of real gold, the crystals are all large flawless precious gems, and some of them are so old that they're Treasures of Ancient Greek and Roman goldsmithing in their own rights!"

"So, how was LeFabre so sure that he'd gotten his hands on the real pieces of the main stem?"

"Von Diedenau's journal. Von Diedenau was the last person to verifiably get all the real pieces together, which definitely eliminated many of the forgeries in circulation at the time. Give him his due, M'seiur LeFabre is a very methodical and meticulous man. That's why he came into our neck of the woods - once he had the stem pieces, he wanted to find a place where he could perform the ceremony without all the competition breathing down his neck."

I looked at Dan. "Well? Aren't you going to get ready to go to the casino?"

"Aren't you? After all, I'll make that much better an impression if I show up with a gorgeous woman on my arm."

I held up one of Von Brunstedt's files. "I have homework to do. You go without me. Take Keith along with you - he's been kinda mopey lately."

Dan gave me a knowing smirk and said, "Gee, I wonder why!"

 

*****

Danny was very quiet the next morning at breakfast. I looked at Keith and asked, "Okay, HOW MUCH money did he lose?" Keith didn't say anything, but just stretched his arms out wide. "Ick! THAT Much?"

"Damned Roulette!" Danny grumped.

"_Roulette_. You played roulette. Dammit, Danny, Roulette isn't gambling, it's just a dignified way of opening your wallet and dumping cash on the table!"

"But it seemed so-"

            Stylish. He didn't say it, but you could just hear it. "Oh, for God's Sake! Okay, so the entire point of going to a casino is to gamble, but at the very least, play a game that you know that you can win!"

"Oh get off my back! And when did You become the boss of this gang?"

"And since when did this become a gang? We're all supposed to be friends here, remember?"

Danny let that one pass. "So, what are you going going to be doing today?"

"Oh, I'm just going to nose around in a few archives, pick up a book that I've ordered, stuff like that."

"We may have to put that on hold for a while. My losses at the tables requires that we renew our cash reserves."

I looked at him painfully. "You signed IOUs, didn't you? Jeez Louise, Danny, I thought that at the very least, you'd know to only bet money that you had on you!"

"As for the cash that we're going to need-"

"NO. For the love of Christ, Danny, we don't know when LeFabre is going to show up in Paris again! We have got to stay focused! Tonight, I'll go with you and get in touch with Von Brunstedt's contact man, Ferrat. Selling Von Brunstedt his INTERPOL files should at least cover your debt and put some kick back in our reserves."

"Why are you contacting Ferrat? I thought that you didn't want Von Brunstedt to know that you existed!"

"_Because_, a Big League operator like you're supposed to be wouldn't make contact directly. Keith will be there as your bodyguard, so he can't do it, so it's up to me. If I play it right, they'll just think that I'm a poor little piece of fluff involved in things that she can't really understand, which isn't quite as good as being completely unknown, but given the circumstances-"

*****

Once a bookworm, always a bookworm. Sneer at us if you must, but most people simply will never understand the subtle joy of nosing around a really good bookstore. For all the hype about the internet, there is something about wandering around the stacks of a good library or archive; the books sort of call out to you. There's this sense of knowledge just waiting there to be opened, and the lovely serendipity of finding a book that you didn't know about. If anything, also being Catwoman has heightened my sense of being on the prowl.

Thibault's was just the sort of bookstore of which dedicated bookworms dream. It was a specialty bookstore, dedicated to the subject of gems, jewelry, antique jewelry, and the history and lore of jewelry. Besides being the proprietor, M. Thibault was a noted expert in gems, stonecutting, goldsmithing and antique jewelry in his own right. The store was one of those cramped little affairs on a side street with just a small plaque beside the door to say what it was. If you didn't already know what and where it was, you didn't have any business being there. The first floor was crowded with bookshelves, and the air was redolent with the smells of wood oil, paper and the subdued tang of an airconditioning unit keeping the room perpetually at the precise proper temperature and aridity to prevent acidity from forming in old paper. I allowed myself the luxury of wandering around the store, checking out the titles for a bit before going to the counter and gently tapping the bell for attention.

A weedy young man who was obviously not the celebrated M. Thibault himself answered the bell. "Good afternoon," I purred in my best French, "I am the woman who called last week from New York about that 1762 copy of Diafoir's The Dishonest Alchemist. Do you have it?"

The weedy young man behind the counter goggled for a bit, but managed to maintain his decorum. Not that I blamed him - I was wearing a very tight fitting, red cowl necked sweater, dark red glove leather trousers, and four-inch needle heeled Prada boots, with my long dark hair flowing down past my shoulders. Poor thing probably only saw women like me on TV. Being this close must be more than his poor heart could take!

He fumbled around the back room and came back with a slender volume wrapped in a sealed wax paper envelope. I reached into my volumous soft leather purse and brought out a pair of latex surgical gloves and put them on. Carefully breaking the seal on the envelope, I examined the book. It seemed all right, but-

I carefully checked the spine. "This isn't the 1762 edition. This is the 1858 Geronte forgery." I pinned him to the back wall like a butterfly with my hard green eyes. "Thibault's didn't earn it's reputation selling Forgeries."

He burbled a few abject apologies in that effusive servile manner that only the French can get away with and hurried into the back. Then I heard him clatter up the stairs. There was the sound of a discussion up on the second floor, and then the sound of voices. The voices grew strident. Messieur Thibault came down still wearing a jeweler's apron and magnifying lenses clipped to his glasses, with another book wrapped in wax paper. M. Thibault wasn't exactly happy about parting with The Dishonest Alchemist, and we went through several rather intense minutes of French style haggling. I had to resort to threatening to spread around the fact that they'd tried to foist an obvious forgery on me.

Finally, he caved in and sold it to me for 1,400 Euros, which I paid in cash. But the second that I had the book in my purse, a man came bustling in, and hurried up to the counter. They whispered together for a while, as I was waiting for M. Thibault to write up my reciept. Their whispering got rather intense, and then the newcomer turned to me. In English, he said, "Pardon me, Ma'amselle, but there seems to have been a mistake - you see, I was just sent to acquire that very book that you just bought."

"Well, that's a pity, but I need this book for my research, and since I just paid _Cash_ for it, it's mine." I was about to give him a little more grief, when I saw the hangdog look on his face. He just looked so embarrassed about having to ask what he obviously knew was an intrusive and unreasonable question. "Oh, well...why do you need it, anyway?"

"Oh, _I_ don't need it; an old and valued client of my firm's, Professeur Maxim Pernelle of le Sourbonne, just called out of the blue and insisted that I come right over and pick up that book."

"Professor Pernelle? The Theology maven?"

'You've heard of him?"

"Well, in my business, you hear a lot about many very different people. I'll tell you what - if M'sieur Le Professeur agrees to cover what I just paid for this book, I'll let him have it. AFTER, I've made a few notes out of a certain section."

"Very generous of you, Gracious Lady."

"Not generosity, merely a professional courtesy from one scholar to another. My receipt, M. Thibault?"

As we exited the bookstore, I glanced down at the receipt. "Hmmm...it appears that M'sieur Le Professeur is also an old and valued client of M. Thibault's."

"I wouldn't be surprised. But what makes you say that?"

"The receipt that he gave me is only for a thousand Euros; I paid fourteen hundred. Since M'sieur Le Professeur will repay me the value of the receipt, M. Thibault is giving his favored customer a four hundred Euro discount. Generous of him, especially since it's coming out of MY pocketbook!"

"Well, the book trade is very cut-throat, I understand."

"Maybe, but I get the impression that M'sieur Thibault likes to have his little joke. Is there anywhere around here where I can take my notes? It shouldn't take more than an hour or two."

"An hour or two?"

"If you don't take comprehensive notes, then there's little point in taking them at all."

The stranger introduced himself as Gerard Trenaud, and guided me me to one of those little nook in the wall cafes that Paris is so famous for. He ordered coffees for the both of us as I prepared. "Wouldn't it be quicker and easier just to photocopy the section that you want?"

"This book was bound in 1762, and to save money, the binder used adhesive bonding, rather than stiching the accordion pleating to the inner hinge."

Gerard gave me a blank look.

"Instead of folding portions of the pages into little 'pamphlets' and stiching those to the cloth strip at the back, as the more expensive books are, the binder just glued the loose pages together and glued that to the cloth. Sort of like a modern paperback book. If I open this book flat out, as I'd have to in order to use a copier or scanner, I'd crack the two centuries old glue, and the pages would start to slip out. And I have an aversion to carelessly destroying rare old books."

Gerard gave a very gallic shrug and took a sip of his coffee. After watching me make notes in shorthand at breakneck speed for a while, he asked, "When did you become interested in Theology?"

"I'm not, particularly."

"Then why are you so interested in that book?"

"Oh, this is for my job. I work as a researcher for an American businessman who has an interest in acquiring some pieces of ancient goldwork and jewelry. The problem is, of course, the antiques markets, especially the antique jewelry markets, are absolutely lousy with forgeries."

"Why would a book on Alchemy be helpful in dealing with forgeries? M'sieur Le Professeur led me to believe this he wanted the book for the author's insights on certain aspects of Occultism in the Age of Reason."

"I'm not surprised. You see, the author, Etienne Diafoir, was a Parisian goldsmith and jeweler who got involved in Rosicrucianism and Masonry. He rose to the Second Degree, and once he got there, he decided that the whole shebang was a crock. He publically denounced the Grand Lodge in Paris, and wrote savage letters to the newspapers of the period calling the Rosicrucians a crew of charlatans, atheists and fools. His main problem was that he was mostly a self-educated man, and as such he was open to criticism as a parneveau. So, when he wrote The Dishonest Alchemist, he relied on his mastery as a goldsmith to attack the Esotericists on a field where HE was the expert - metallurgy. He claimed that the entire modern concept of 'Alchemy', especially the transmutation of base metals into gold and the creation of precious gems, was the product of gullible and greedy Medieval transcribers misunderstanding manuscripts by ancient Grecian jewelers. His theory was that the original manscripts described nothing more than the methods by which the ancients performed gold-plating and made paste jewels. Since academics during the 'Dark Ages' knew that the ancient Romans and Greeks were capable of great marvels such as effective sewage and masterful bridge-building, how much more marvelous would it be, if they could change lead into gold, or glass into diamond?"

"Yes, I remember something rather like that in Umberto Ecco's Foucault's Pendulum. But why would a debunking of dubious occultists help you spot forgeries?"

"Well, Diafoir's big selling point for his book was that the so-called 'Alchemists' were nothing more that frauds, passing off cheap tricks as miracles. The portion that I'm copying is an almost encyclopedic listing of 18th Century forgery techniques and common mistakes made by the antiques forgers of that period. The pieces in which my principal is interested were commonly copied during that period, so knowing what the antiques fakers of that period did would be very useful, No?"

"If it's just a book on fraud techniques, I wonder why le Professeur is interested in it?"

"Well, Diafoir didn't limit himself to disproving the more dubious Alchemists. He attacked the Rosicrucians on the lack of documentary evidence of Christian Rozenkruz, the inability of explorers to find the city of Damcar, and argued several points of Masonic and Rosicrucian philosophy as well. I imagine that's what M'sieur Le Professeur is interested in."

As I transcribed, Gerard and I talked. My shorthand is good enough that I can transcribe while I talk, so I didn't have to divide my attention much. Not that the conversation was very taxing; Gerard kept the talk light and frothy, and the hours sort of flew by. We flirted outrageously - or at least as outrageously as you can between bouts of intense writer's cramp. It was fun, and he made it easy.

I just wish that Pernelle was half as easy to get along with as his agent. When we met at his office at the Sorbonne, I tried to open with a few pleasantries, but the 'Great Man', as he obviously thought of himself, wasn't having any of it. Despite the fact that his buddy Thibault had already cut him a discount worth 450 American dollars, Pernelle demanded that I hand over the book just like that, with no mention of repayment of any kind. We haggled for a bit - that is, if you can call screaming at each other at the top of your lungs haggling. When he had the security guard enter, Pernelle accused me of stealing the book from his office and demanded that I be turned over to the police. But I had my receipt from Thibault's, and Gerard refused to perjure himself just to please an imperious old man, client or no client. Pernelle ponied up, and then had the nerve to 'honor' me with an offer of dinner. I just told him that if the check bounced, that I'd sic a team of attack trained American litigators on him.

That ugly scene over, Gerard escorted me out. "I want to apologize," he said, "for Le Professeur's rudeness. Academic politics and the study of Religion do not often combine to create a sedate temperament. M'sieur le Professeur is used to bulling his way toward getting what he wants. And by way of apology, could I show my abject grief at subjecting you to that unpleasantness by taking you out to dinner?"

"You certainly don't waste any time, do you?" I looked at him and decided that he must either be very good with the Ladies, or have absolutely NO luck with them at all. Only a master or a complete yutz could come up with that sad puppydog look. "Well, okay, but not tonight."

"Oh? You have plans?"

"More to the point, my employer has plans."

"Oh? You're leaving Paris?"

"No, quite the opposite - he's taking me out on the town." Gerard gave me an odd, sideways look. "NO, it's not like that! Look, I work as a freelance researcher - do you honestly think that people take a woman who looks like _I_ do seriously as a scholar? It has been an uphill struggle getting people to accept that I'm a competent researcher. Mister Flaherty-" (Flaherty was the name that Danny C. was traveling under) "-hired me to do his researching for him, _because_ I look like this. He passes me off as his mistress-cum- ornament, which allows me to travel around doing my work without tracking me to see what I'm doing. If I go out, they just say, 'Oh, the little strumpet is going to go shopping for some clothes'; they don't follow me around, asking what book I requested and so on. However, this pose requires that I show up from time to time, looking like one of those upper-class status symbols. I feel like a vintage sports car, sometimes."

"Well, you have to admit that it's a pleasant way to assuage a man's ego."

"It beats telling him that he's not paying for a spot in my bed."

Gerard perked up at the sound of that. "Well, if you're 'on duty' as it were tonight, what about tomorrow night? After all, he can't keep you hard at work all the time, now can he?"

I smiled back at him. "Why not? Just remember, M'sieur Trenaud, that you Frenchmen have a reputation to think of!"

*****

Paris occupies an honored place on the list of cities that were built to be walked in. As I returned from giving the ungrateful Professor Pernelle the book that he didn't really deserve, I indulged myself. The weather was perfect, the sights were well worth seeing, and any purse-snatcher who might come along had the surprise of his life in store. I bought an ice cream cone, one of those where the cone is actually made from a wrapped up sugar wafer, and enjoyed it. While the walking was fun, the four-inch needle heels that I was wearing weren't made for it, so I found a bus bench and cut them a break.

While my dogs were panting for breath, there was a sound of cursing and sharp yowl that came from behind me. I turned and saw a small gray blue form come streaking out from a fishmonger's shop. The blur whizzed by me and clambered up the slender sapling tree that was planted beside the bus stop. I looked up in the sparse branches of the tree and saw a small white triangular face with grave gray eyes peering back at me.

Acting on an instinct that I couldn't name, I offered the little alley cat a lick of my ice cream cone. Hesitantly, it stuck out a tiny pink tongue and took a lick. It must have liked what it tasted, because it dug in with a will. "Hey! I offered a bite, not a whole meal!"

I got up before the little glutton could kill the whole cone, but found my lap suddenly occupied by a purring occupant. I picked her up with my empty hand and looked her in the face. "I'm not gonna get rid of you that easily, am I?"

With a gusty sigh, I stashed the little moocher in my purse. Then the pitiful sounds of hungry mewing came from the handbag, so I headed into the nearest butcher's. A couple of sausage links later, and the only sounds coming from my bag were the sound of chewing and purrs.

 

*****

When I got back to the hotel, I ordered some cream and tuna from room service and pulled my new fuzzy little roommate out of my purse.

"What is THAT?" Danny asked.

"An Eludium Q-38 Space Modulator. What do you Think it is?"

"I never said that you could get a fucking Pet!"

"And _I_ never said that you could turn me into a living Comic Book character! Things happen." I ignored Danny and concentrated on the infinitely more pressing matter of rubbing the kitten's tummy.

<Humpf!> "Just don't let Puff there sharpen its claws on my suits."

<humpf right back at you!> "Shows what He knows, doesn't it?" I said to the kitten. "There's no way that you're a 'Puff'. But who are you?"

I thought on the matter for a moment. Then I had it. "What else? Raffles."

Raffles showed her appreciation of my insight by the quality of her purrs.

 

*****

Le Cercle D'Tychee operated on very different principles than do American casinos. American casinos act as a de facto player in most of the games, and win or lose money, with the odds being outrageously in their favor in most of the games. While this was true in such games as Roulette, for the most part Le Cercle was simply a place where people came to play games of chance with each other. American casinos have a very egalitarian approach to things like the sort of people that they let in and how they're dressed, on the principle of the more suckers, the more money; Le Cercle's approach was that it was a social club, made up of persons of quality, who would rather cut off their good arms than renege on a debt of honor. What they lost not shaking down the suckers at the tables, they more than made up for in Membership Fees and at the Bar and Restaurant.

Still, it worked. The place had the cool, sleek kind of opulence that sort of turns its nose up at the vulgar excesses of Las Vegas. Part of their approach was that you had to dress to come and throw your money at them. No slogging around in shorts and Hawaiian shirts, like in Vegas. Danny C. was cutting a respectable figure in his tux, and I was wearing one of those deceptively simple draping things that play peek-a-boo games with the people watching. As we made our entrance, Danny almost reflexively started heading over to the roulette table, and I almost had to (very subtly) break the arm that I was supposedly leaning to for protection, in order to steer him toward the Poker tables. We were at the Poker table for a little under two hours before things started to happen. Danny was partially redeeming the 'sucker' reputation that he'd earned at the roulette tables by reaming a German and an Italian at Five-Card Stud. I'd been keeping tabs on Von Brunstedt's usual table when I finally spotted my bunny, Ferrat.

I nudged Danny's arm and murmured "Going to work." Then I stood and made my way through the throng.

Ferrat was the tall, dark, slender 'wolfhound' kind of Frenchman who gets over by letting on that he's ever so much more cultured and refined than you are, but he'll let it slide, 'cause he's such a nice guy. I managed to catch him between schmoozing gigs at the bar. Putting on my best 'what am I doing?' expression, I slipped some folded papers into Ferrat's pocket as I said sotto voce, "I'm supposed to tell you that this is for openers."

Ferrat felt in his pocket, probably to make sure that I hadn't slipped him a packet of drugs. Then he took me gently but firmly by the arm. "And what am I supposed to make of this?"

"Hey, I dunno! I'm just passing along the message!" With that, I pulled my arm free and went back to the gaming table. Then I nudged Danny. "Either tonight, or tomorrow, you're going to get an invitation to a private game."

"You made a connection?"

"I passed along the cover sheets to several of Von Brunstedt's INTERPOL files. Depending on whether or not Von Brunstedt checks out our background first, he's going to want to talk to you. Danny, this is very important - I can't help you out here. He's going to want to talk to YOU; Keith and I will be lucky if they even let us in the fucking room. You'll have to negotiate with Von Brunstedt, one on one, by yourself. If you have ANY chance of becoming the Big Time operator that you've always dreamed of, you're going to have to play both Von Brunstedt AND his man Van Djass. Just remember - this isn't back home, and these aren't the pinhead punks that you're used to hustling. Play it smart, for once in your life."

Danny just smiled at me and said, "Hey! Not to worry! I've got it covered!"

I fought the sick feeling that hit me square in the gut. It occurred to me that the smartest thing to do at this point would be to just up and leave, and let Von Brunstedt and his cronies rip Danny apart. Leaving Dan in the lurch wouldn't bother me in the least, but Keith would never leave him twisting in the wind and there's no way that I'd leave him holding the bag. Y'know, having a conscience can really suck.

Von Brunstedt must believe in striking while the iron's hot, 'cause Danny got that invite a little over an hour later. Danny picked up his winnings and cocked an arm at me as the concessionaire lead us to the private room.

The private room was a little heavier on the dark woods than the white marble and gold rococo main rooms, but it still sent that 'we're serious money here, folks' message. There were five players seated around the green felt covered table, but they all had their entourages. As they let me set next to Danny, I checked around the table. I recognized Eigen Von Brunstedt and two of the players from Von Brunstedt's 'Known Associates' file. They worked with Von Brunstedt, not for him, if you catch the meaning. The others I couldn't place, but I rather doubted that they were part of Von Brunstedt's machine.

Von Brunstedt made a few pleasantries by way of introduction, but didn't make any coy references to the INTERPOL files. The conversation was light, and the poker action was heavy. Danny quickly lost about half of the money that he'd taken from the suckers out in the main room. Then he nudged my foot with his. Making sure that I didn't show it, I waited for Danny to indicate what he was up to. Then I noticed that he was running the tip of his forefinger along the showing corner of the back of one of the cards in his hand. That's not one of Danny's tics or tells. I looked closer at the back of the card. I saw nothing at first, but then I spotted a subtle variation in the pattern on the boarder of the card. It was very slight, but if you knew what you were looking for, you should be able to see it from across the table.

The cards were marked. Trust Danny C. to know all about cheats.

I got up, said that I was getting a drink and asked Danny if he wanted something. He just asked for a refill of his whiskey sour. On my way to the bar, I helped myself to a couple of house decks, and made sure that they were the same brand and patterns as they were using in the private room. And I made sure that they weren't marked.

Hey, it would be pretty dumb to just put another deck of marked cards in the game, now wouldn't it?

When the dealer's position came around to Danny, he switched the cards. The tenor of the game didn't change much. Von Brunstedt must have just been pulling that in order to see what Danny would do.

 

*****

Back at the hotel, Danny C. was walking on air. "Oh Yeah! Playing Hardball with the Big Boys! That Kraut tried to make a chump outta me and it didn't work!"

"I wouldn't be quite so happy, Danny," I purred from where I was curled up on the couch, playing with Raffles. "That's only Round One. Round Two is gonna go down pretty soon. I'd suggest that you show up tomorrow night at the casino, just so that Von Brunstedt doesn't decide to give his test on the street, and involve les flicks."

"Right, right - now here's what I want you to do tomorrow night---"

"Sorry, Dan, but I can't - I have a date."

That was a real conversation stopper. Keith looked at me with his jaw dragging on the carpet. "Steve - You got a Date?"

That was pretty much Dan's reaction, too. "A DATE? But who would go out on a date with You?"

I uncurled and struck a seductive pose. "The real question is - who wouldn't?"

"Stop kidding around, Steve! You yourself said that we can't be screwing around!"

"I never said that. Besides, it won't be all fun and games - he works for M'sieur Le Professeur Pernelle, who is in all likeliness the owner of the pieces that are locked away in Fessinger's et Fils vaults."

Danny didn't like it, but he let it slide. Keith, on the other hand... "Steve - are you sure about this?"

I patted him on the hand and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Oh, don't worry about me, Keith! I'm a Big Girl, now!"

 

As Stephanie sashayed out of the sitting room to her bedroom, Keith couldn't help but agree. Yes, she was definitely a big girl now. God, she was so beautiful...

*****

 

Danny and Keith were weird all the next day, so it was a relief when I finally packaged Keith into his brand new tuxedo (with cleverly concealed Body Armor), and sent him off to play bodyguard for Danny. Despite all the messing that Danny's done with his head over the years, Keith still is pretty sharp when he thinks he can. He should manage to keep Danny from digging himself in too deeply.

That out of the way, I settled down to getting ready for my first real date in - well, EVER! I mean, I wouldn't call any of the debacles that I had as Steve real dates, and all of Catwoman's experiences were fictional. So, this was sort of a maiden run for me.

Well, Gerard is French, and he might feel obligated to live up to the Frenchman's reputation as a great lover. So, I started off the laciest underwear that I had. No sense in not making the right statement. I chose a tight-fitting dress of dark purple that showed a lot of décolletage. Yes, Dark Purple. Hey, I'm Catwoman! I like dark purple. So sue me.

I made sure that Raffles had enough food to fill even her bottomless pit of a stomach, and went out on my first date.

Now, I wish that I could describe our date in detail, with all the sparkling banter and witty repartee. But I can't. It's all sort of a blur. You see, while I am Catwoman, the poised and confident mistress of her own fate, I'm also still Steve Zanuck, perennial wallflower. And I'm going on a date. With a guy. Who I have every intention of screwing his brains out. I remember going out, I remember having dinner, I remember having a good time; I just don't particularly remember what was said. But it all comes crystal clear when Gerard laid his hands on me and pulled me close.

I let him kiss me first, and then I started to return the kiss. I don't know if it's that Frenchmen aren't afraid of sexually aggressive women, or if it was just Gerard, but it was really nice to not worry about a spun-glass Ego. We took our time working our way down each other's body and over to the bedroom, and enjoyed all the sights on the way. I already knew that I enjoyed Sex. But having Sex with someone who I actually liked, instead of the act being part of some sleazy power play, as it is with Danny C., now that's a horse of a completely different color.

I used every trick in Catwoman's bag of sexual goodies, and Gerard had some pretty impressive moves himself.

Okay, let's not get pornographic here - it was Sex.

Good Sex.

DAMN Good Sex.

Okay, we didn't break the bed, but that was about it.

 

*****

 

The next morning, as we were enjoying a little of that great warm cuddling time together, he asked me, "And, so what about tonight?"

"Mmm - I'd love to, but I've gotta work tonight."

"I still don't understand exactly what it is that you do."

"Well, my boss is basically a high-end middleman. He buys stuff that _might_ be valuable, finds some way of proving that it's valuable, and having proven that its value sells it to someone else."

"And how do you fit into all of this?"

"Oh, I'm a researcher, my job is to track down information, compare it to other information, and hopefully, I'll come up with something that he can use. For instance, that book that you were looking for, The Dishonest Alchemist, is almost a guide to 18th Century forgery techniques. With that information, we can tell if something that's supposed to be from, say, the Reign of the Caesars isn't just something that an 18th Century goldsmith thought that something from the Reign of the Caesars should look like."

"But it's still gold!"

"Yeah, but its historical value is almost Nil. A proven connection to some historical event or personage can shoot up the cost of an object exponentially. Let me put it this way - if it's a silver coin, it's worth maybe ten Euros; if it's a silver shekel from the Roman era, it's worth maybe fifty Euros; if it's from the reign of King Herod, it's worth maybe a hundred Euros; BUT if you could somehow prove that it's one of the 'thirty pieces of silver' that the Pharisees paid Judas to betray Christ, then it would be almost priceless."

"But you would have to prove it somehow."

"Well, things like that are why I get paid the Big Bucks. That certainty can mean the difference between making or losing a fortune, especially if you're dealing in Antiques."

<hmm...> "Still sounds like a lot of nonsense."

"Well, I admit that it is, but hey - it's my job!"

"Why DO you work for that man? You obviously don't like or respect him very much."

"Well, the thing of it is, a woman like me gets a lot of doors opened for her on account of her looks. But Respect isn't one of those doors. And working as a Scholar is mostly about Respect. When you say something, people have to stop and take you seriously, otherwise, why bother? And Scholars tend not to take women who look like I do very seriously."

"What about the female scholars?"

"Especially the female scholars; somebody like me threatens their 'Beauty OR Brains' self-justification."

"And what good does it do you, if you do all your research hiding behind your employer? It doesn't do your reputation any good, if they don't know what you're doing!"

"It gets me out there in the field, working. And they do notice, in a small way. Which is a big break over pressing my nose against the window, looking in."

Gerard just made a humpf!-ing noise and said something about not having to put up with that sort of nonsense in his job.

"Oh? And you don't have to put up with a lot of silliness, working for M'sieur Le Professeur?"

"I _don't_ work for Professeur Pernelle."

"But, at Thibault's, you said-"

"I said that he was a Client. One of many."

"Oh? Exactly what IS your business, then?"

"Oh, my specialty is Logistics."

"Logistics? Well, I suppose that it IS a vastly underrated field. But how does a Logistician come to be running around Paris, buying rare books for an academic?"

"He is an old and valued client of my firm's; so old and so valued, that he can occasionally make irregular demands."

Then he had to go to work, and I had to get back to the hotel. We swapped cell-phone numbers, and we made a tentative agreement to get together as our work schedules let us.

 

*****

Keith seemed tense when I got back to the hotel. "Where were you all night?"

I gave him what I hoped was a roguishly charming smile as I picked up Raffles and stroked her gray fur dramatically. "What do you think I was doing?" Keith started to sputter, so I changed the topic. "So, did Wonder Boy do anything stupid last night? No, let me narrow that down - did he do anything stupid that you couldn't fix right away?"

"The Kraut tried to plant a guy with a hidden radio behind Dan, tipping him off to what Dan had in his hand. I 'accidentally bumped into him' and broke it."

"Good man."

"I AM right here, y'know," Danny growled at me. "You two don't have to talk about me like I'm not here."

"But it's so much FUN! So, what did Von Brunstedt do when he couldn't hustle you?"

"He agreed on Eighty Thousand Euro for the files. To be exchanged tonight at the casino. I want you to be there."

"Hey, try and STOP me from being there!"

Danny smirked at me. "So, did you have a good time last night?"

I gave a gusty sigh. "Oh, it's so much better when you're with someone who knows what he's doing.

 

*****

The exchange of payment for the files went off with a refreshing lack of fun and games. That should have tipped me off. Von Brunstedt had plans for us that went beyond saving a moderate chunk of change.

We were in one of the private rooms, but there wasn't a card game going on. Von Brunstedt gave Danny a wiseacre smile. "So, Herr Flaherty, I understand that you deal in - rare collectibles."

 

Oh, God; the old 'We're going to talk crime without actually saying anything incriminating' schtick. How precious. I'll spare you the square dance and get to the nitty gritty. Von Brunstedt was interested in a rather odd rare book. It wasn't a First Edition, not in the usual sense. Alexandre Dumas' Le Homme avec le Masque d'Fer (or 'The Man in the Iron Mask', if you gotta be monophonic) was originally published as a serial in newspapers across France. Almost all of 'his' work (Dumas worked with LOTS of 'collaborators') was originally published this way. It seems that someone gathered up the entire series and had it bound up in a book. They even got Dumas Pere to autograph it. It was worth Major bucks, and Von Brunstedt apparently had a buyer who wouldn't be terribly upset at the fact that it was legally owned by the Societie Literaire Catholique. It was worth two hundred thousand Euro to Von Brunstedt, which means that it was probably worth ten times that much, if you knew whom the buyer was.

It was a bit of a sucker-job, but if we wanted to get closer to Von Brunstedt, we had to jump through a few hoops.

 

*****

We spent the next week or so travelling around Paris, establishing ourselves as dealers in, as Von Brunstedt said, 'rare collectibles'. Of course, we being Americans, the French dealers immediately put on their 'why should we sell our treasures to uncouth colonials?' hats, in order to jack up their prices by a factor of four. They were rude, inconsiderate, opportunistic and money-grubbing. Danny fit in like he'd been born there.

We finally got around to checking out the Societie Literaire Catholique, pretending to be checking on some first edition paperback Simenon Inspector Maigrets. Yes, there IS a market for things like that. Surprised the Hell out of me.

When we got back to the hotel, Danny said, "Did you see the security in that place? Talk about antiquated! Hell, _I_ could break into that place and steal that 'Man in the Iron Mask'!"

"They only left that stuff there to fake out would-be burglars, Dan. The real security system is much more sophisticated. But that's not the problem."

"Problem? There's a problem? Please, don't tell me there's a problem!" Dan sighed. "Okay, what's the problem?"

"The reason the security there is so - comparatively - light is that all the really valuable works are kept in a climate controlled room, and even then they're in pressurized gas cabinets."

"You mean - if we take them out of those cabinets, they'll turn to dust or something?"

"Well, a book turning to dust in your hands doesn't happen all that much in reality. They fall apart, the pages rip at the slightest touch, and things like that, but 'turning to dust' is just hack writers' hyperbole. No, in our case, what's far more likely is that the acidity of the newsprint that the pages are made of will react to the sudden change in pressure by darkening the paper to the point of near illegibility. Which is still something that we'd rather avoid. A further complication is the _Size_ of the book - it's a bound collection of newspaper pages, so it's going to be the size of a good-sized Atlas. Pulling anything funny is going to be hard."

"So - we just take the whole pressure cabinet?"

"Not a bad idea, but there is something simpler that we can do."

"Oh? And what is that?"

"What is one of the safest ways to get anything done? You get someone else to do it!"

*****

It took a little more than a week of preparation.

 

*****

I told Gerard the security cleared version of it over dinner. "I think that I may have made a breakthrough! I discovered a printer's discrepancy-" God, what some people will sit through, to get laid. But just because Gerard had to put up with it, doesn't mean that you do. Bizarrely, he actually seemed interested.

"So, when are you going to verify all of this?"

"Tuesday. Professor Barrebrandt, one of the premier experts on Mass Publications of the period, is coming to the Societie Literaire, and he's going to examine the section in question."

"Tres Bein! And you'll get the credit?"

"Oh, Good Lord, No! Barrebrandt will get the credit, that's understood. He's the Expert. But _I_ will be on record as being part of the effort. If I'm right, then it will be officially recognized - a minor issue, but still a recognized item - and I can honestly say that I was a part of the development. Which is a quantum shift from my current status."

"But Barrebrandt will get the credit!"

"Gerard, it's a minor, even trivial matter! Barrebrandt isn't really getting anything from this, aside from a minor mention that gives him a break in his 'Publish or Perish' schedule. But I'm getting credibility, and I'm showing that I can 'play ball' as we say in the States. Believe me, Sweetie, it's all good."

"Can I be there?"

"What? Why?"

"Well, this is an important date for you, Chou-chou! Besides, I've never seen anything like this, first person. It should be very interesting."

"Oh, that's what YOU think! Believe me, Sweetie, these things are very slow, very technical and VERY tedious."

"If I get bored, I'll go out to the main room and read a book. After all, I'll be in the right place for it, Non?"

"Okay, but don't say that I didn't warn you."

 

*****

Le Societie Literaire Catholique was well over a hundred years old, and you got the definite impression that the place hadn't been dusted since the Germans rolled in.

Professor Barrebrandt was curious about the discrepancy that I claimed to have found, but he was more curious about the entourage that was with me. "Well, M'sieur Le Professeur, this is Eric Flaherty, my principal. I was researching the provenance of an 18th Century collection of Villon's poems for him when I discovered the paper stoppage, so this is technically on his dime."

"And this young man?"

"This is Gerard Trenaud." Gerard offered his hand to be shaken, and the professor obliged. "We're seeing each other socially, and he wanted to see what I did for a living."

The professor slipped his glassed down the bridge of his nose and looked at Gerard.

I shrugged. "Hey, he's French, you're French, you explain it to ME."

Ignoring the 'civilians' (i.e. Dan and Gerard), the Societie technicians carefully disconnected the pressurized display cabinet from its system and wheeled it into their Inventory Maintenance workshop. Like many institutes that collect old valuable books, the Societie had a workshop for keeping those oh-so-pricey works from falling apart. The equipment included a pressurized chamber that had an airlock that you hook up to the cabinets to pass things into. This chamber was equipped with tools that allowed you to move a book from their cabinets and be treated.

The technicians hooked up the cabinet and started working the ratchets that moved the book out of its hermetic containment. The book passed into the airlock, which clicked shut and pressurized, keeping the air quality absolutely perfect. When the seal was perfect, the second door opened, and the technicians worked the second set of ratchets to bring the bound collection of Dumas' Man in the Iron Mask serials into the work cabinet.

Or, at least they would have, if I hadn't broken in the night before and replaced the airlock with a stage magician's trick that I adapted to resemble the airlock. When the 'airlock' shut, it dropped the book into a hidden recess that contained a disguised (and very airtight, thank you very much! I worked for three days to get it that way) container. When the 'airlock' was opened on the other side, a carefully prepared forgery was waiting. As everyone watched the techs ratchet the forgery into the cabinet for inspection, Dan quietly opened up the recess and pulled out the container. He made sure of the seal, stuck the stamps and address label on it, and quietly took it out of the workshop. He put it in the 'Outgoing Mail' bin and returned unnoticed. The ratchet was so slow that Danny was back before anyone even noticed.

You have no idea of how many years I lost from stress, having to depend on Danny for those all-important moves.

I will treasure to my dying day the expressions on their faces as the technicians gingerly opened the cover, to reveal - blank pages.

Hey, finding an acceptable cover took me most of the week! Do you honestly think that I had time to find someone to forge thousands of pages that I had no way of knowing what they looked like?

As the book was being opened, you could have heard a pin drop; after it was open, you couldn't have heard an Elephant drop.

Enraged, the Societies representative tore open the airlock, and the phosphorous that I'd painted onto each and every page hit oxygen and burst into flames. That was Keith's cue.

He grabbed the halogen fire extinguisher and roared at the technicians to get the airlock off. They did, and he passed them the fire extinguisher and they gave him the airlock. As planned. While everyone was watching the techs contaminate the crime scene with halogen foam, Keith pulled out the real airlock (artfully smudged with soot and halogen foam the night before) from where I'd hidden it, and tucked our fake in its place.

The result of all this was histrionics all around in the grand French style. Damn near the only ones NOT accused of being behind it were Mister 'Flaherty' and his people. While the Police would have loved to charge us with it, there was absolutely no way that we could have done it. <innocent look>

*****

After the Police announced that we could all go, Gerard asked Danny if he could walk me back to the hotel. For support and consolation, you understand.

He was quiet and understanding of my 'upset' as we walked through the streets of Paris; after all, I'd just lost a great opportunity for my career. I was so lost in grief that I barely noticed that we weren't headed for my hotel, but rather in the direction of his apartment.

I'll say this for Gerard - he gives Great consolation!

 

*****

The exchange of the money for the book was a bit more convoluted than the one for the INTERPOL files, but then Von Brunstedt really wanted those files. This book was just business as usual. It was the usual criminal payoff do-se-do, very stressful at the time, but not really that interesting afterwards. If anything, I got the impression that Von Brunstedt was checking our outfit out.

 

*****

"I don't BELIEVE this!" Danny fumed. "He wants us to steal JOAN OF ARC!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Dan. The La Pucelle d'Rouen Reliquary never contained the ashes of Joan of Arc."

"La Poo-sell?" Keith asked.

"La Pucelle. Joan of Arc never referred to herself as 'Joan of Arc', she always called herself 'Jehenne La Pucelle', or in more Anglic terms, 'Joan the Maid'."

"Why is it called 'The Maid of Rouen' Reliquary?" Danny asked. "I always thought Joan was called 'The Maid of Orleans'."

"Not in Rouen. Rouen is the town in France where Joan was burned at the stake. The Reliquary was commissioned in 1631 by a group of Rouen parishioners to celebrate the bicentennial of her martyrdom, and is considered a masterpiece of 17th Century French gold and silver smithing."

Keith fidgeted. "I dunno about this, Steve. I mean, ripping off a Holy Relic?"

"Keith, like I just told Danny - it is impossible that the La Pucelle Reliquary ever actually contained the ashes of Jean D'Arc. After she was burned to ashes, the English very pointedly dumped her ashes in the river to prevent exactly that sort of thing from happening. The parishioners, who even then were lobbying like mad for Canonization, were making a statement that IF Joan's ashes had been recovered, then they would reverence them as relics of a saint. The box itself is purely symbolic."

"I still don't like ripping off a church."

"Neither do I, Big Guy, but at this point in the game, Von Brunstedt is calling the shots. Until we can get close enough to him where we can start yanking HIS chains, this is the way that it's gotta be."

 

"Hey, Deal With It!" Danny snapped. "In the meantime, y'know what _I_ don't like?"

"Anything having to do with real work?"

"What _I_ don't like is having to put up with all these fucking Cats!"

While I'd rather open a vein that admit it, Danny had a point. In the slightly less that two weeks that she'd been staying with us, Raffles had somehow managed to get word out to the rest of her gang. Phantomas, the Russian Blue tom, was glaring at the loud hairless ape that dared to disturb his sleep. Milady DeWinter, the turtleshell, was rummaging around the books on the off chance of finding a crumb or two. Lupin was playfully rumbling with Boston Blackie as the enigmatic Madam X looked on. Four-Square Jane, Dr. Syn, Irene Adler and Zorro were sprawling around wherever they wished. And wise old MacCavvety was curled up on top of the cabinet, enjoying the highest spot in the room as his just due.

Hey, don't look at me - I didn't bring 'em here, they just showed up.

"Can you at least keep them off my tux?"

"Oh, I specifically laid out your tux where they could get at it."

"Why?"

"Because Braudin, Von Brunstedt's bodyguard and favorite hatchet man, is violently allergic to cat dander. And who's that dangerous sneezing and sniffling? Besides, these guys are the types that take any show of less than iron control as a sign of weakness. Use it."

Danny perked up at the thought of One-Upping Von Brunstedt and stood straight while I brushed off the obvious traces of the cats. Then I tidied up Keith, and I sent them off to play nice with the Big Boys while I did the real work.

My research showed that the LaPucelle d'Rouen Reliquary was moved from the cathedral in Rouen to the Cathedral d'Sainte Margaret in Paris some time in the 18th Century; the reasons were a trifle vague and probably had something to do with ecclesiastical politics. During the Occupation of WWII, French churchmen had resorted to several rather shady ruses to keep their relics and treasures out of the grasping hands of the Boche. In the case of the La Pucelle Reliquary, with its strong patriotic associations, the Occupation Authorities had been quite interested in laying their hands on the Reliquary, among other sacred trinkets. The rector in charge of the cathedral had played a rather cagey game with forgeries of the Reliquary, and a few other shiny bits, including a gold crucifix studded with gems that supposedly dated back to Charlemagne, and a particularly gaudy cup that was supposedly the special private communion goblet of Cardinal Richelieu. The reliquary, the crucifix and the communion goblet were all stored in a strongbox in the rectory when they weren't on display.

Madam X was helping me by lying down on the catalogue that I was trying to read when Danny C. and Keith came back. "So, how goes the homework?" he inquired. That right there should have clued me off. Danny doesn't really care about things like facts or lines of inquiry.

"It goes, it goes. So, how was work?"

"It was all right. I put out the feelers that you wanted me to. And exactly what's so frickin' important about this 'Richelieu Chalice'?"

"It's sharing vault space with the La Pucelle Reliquary in Ste. Margaret's. If you're interested in the Richelieu Chalice, then I have an excuse to go to Ste. Margaret's, and check it out."

"And while you're at it, case the place."

"My, my, what a nasty, suspicious mind you have, Mister Flaherty."

"Well. You'd better stop pussy-footin' around and go in and GET that stupid thing, cause I picked up a few rumors that LeFabre was back from the States."

"He's back in Paris?"

"No, from what I picked up, he was seen last week in Milan, maybe trading notes with that Union Corse asshole Foscarelli."

"But still, that means that he's given up trying to run us to ground back in the States."

Keith was worried. "So, that means that we go back home, right? We don't wanna be anywhere near where LeFabre might spot us!"

Danny shook his head. "No, Ox, we stay put. If we split the scene just when LaFabre shows up, it's like trying to duck out the back door when the Cops show up - it's just asking for it."

"Well, waddya know? The weasel is right two times in a row! We stay put, AND we move up our schedule. I'll call the rectory at Ste. Margaret's tomorrow and ask to speak with the Chief Sextant."

 

*****

 

"You want to do What?"

Gerard just smiled over his coffee. "I said, I want to come with you this afternoon, when you go to check out that chalice."

"Where did you hear about the chalice from?"

"From you!"

"Well, yeah, but I thought that you weren't listening! Didn't you get enough tedium and hassle when you tagged along on that 'Man in the Iron Mask' debacle?"

"Well, that was different! There was shouting, confusion, books bursting into flames, beautiful young women swooning into my arms-"

"Swooning? Who swooned? I never swooned!"

"Yes, well, you should have. I was just trying to cover for your lack of panache, Chou-chou."

"How nice of you." I shot him an exasperated look. "And exactly what are the chances of me going to this rather delicate meeting without you nipping at my heels?"

"Slim to none."

 

*****

The meeting with the Chief Sextant went off without a hitch. I never saw him open the safe in which the cathedral's treasures were kept, and I never tried. I verified that the chalice had indeed been stamped by the SHAFE Inspector General's provenance mark to show that it was indeed the real Richelieu Chalice and not the forgery. Afterwards, I managed to talk the Sextant into giving Gerard and myself the five-centime tour, which was far more instructive than the Sextant realized.

*****

As I tugged the tight-fitting leather bodysuit on and pulled the cat-eared cowl and mask over my face, I felt that sense of finally coming really alive again. While the sensation of running my hands along my lithe athletic body was wonderful, it paled against the feeling of unbridled freedom that swept through me. As I ran along the rooftops getting closer to the Cathedral d'Ste. Margaret, the only thing that kept me from doing completely unnecessary acrobatics was the precious little bundle in the satchel that I was carrying. From a four-story apartment building, I slid down a telephone cable that they didn't replace with an underground cable because they thought that no one would be crazy enough to try anything with it. But then, most sane cat burglars don't wear four-inch stiletto heels in their working outfit. The phone line went down to the rectory wing, but I didn't enter through there. It was a tad too obvious; it just might be a burglar trap.

I scaled up the basilica to the upper ledges. Despite being one of the wealthiest non-governmental organizations in the world, the Roman Catholic Church is also one of the most heavily extended. They would have security systems on the place, but they wouldn't go to the expense of wiring a place that you'd have to use a crane to get to.

Besides, it's more fun this way.

I prowled along the ledge of the building, using the ornamental projections as both footholds and camouflage. I had a very bad moment when I saw a large brooding figure with bat like wings and sharp points on either side of its head squatting there in the darkness. But that was impossible! He doesn't really exist! He's only a comic book character! I fixed my flashlight on it, and gave a loud exhale of relief when I realized that it was only one of the gargoyles that line the ledge.

MAN, this dual paradigm thing can really wear you down!

Actually the one window that was big enough for me to squeeze through was wired, but not well enough to even so much as slow me down. I prowled along the rafters of the main worship chamber.

I reached into my satchel and pulled out the IR/UV Nightsight eyepiece. Yep, sure enough, there were laser tripwires that crossed in front of the door to the rectory. Okay, now Fun and Games begin. I pulled out a small paper packet and slightly sprinkled the powdery contents on the floor in front of the door. Lastly, I pulled Madam X out of the satchel and lightly dropped her next to the powder. Madam X looked up at me nastily, but soon she was blissfully purring and rubbing her face into the powdered catnip.

A few minutes later, a weary looking security guard came out, shone his flashlight around and spotted Madam X. He muttered something, and picked her up. As he was doing his natural born duty to her by scratching her behind the ears, I ducked past him into the rectory and hid myself. The guard shuffled in carrying Madam X, pulled a ring of keys from his pocket, and opened a metal cabinet. He ploddingly over-rode the alarm, closed the cabinet and shuffled off to get Madam X some cream. As he passed where I was hidden, I snaked a hand into his pocket and fished out the keys. I shut off the alarm system and made my way into the room that had the safe containing the Cathedral's treasures. The safe was an old-fashioned Chubb© safe that needed two keys to open. Now, normally a Chubb© safe is pretty much pickproof, even to a lockpick of my skills. But one of the keys needed was right on the guard's ring. Still, it was a tricky pick, and I was very glad that I'd taken the trouble to spray a mild sedative combined with DMSO on Madam X's fur. Right about now, the guard should be sleeping soundly.

Finally, I got the safe open, and I gingerly lifted out the boxes containing the La Pucelle Reliquary, the Charlemagne Crucifix, and the Richelieu Chalice. When I went back into the guard's room, sure enough, he was sound asleep with Madam X in his lap. I slipped the keys back into his pocket, and let myself out the door. A quick sprint across the street to the nearest cover, and I was free and clear.

 

*****

I took my time getting back to the hotel. When I got there, Madam X was sitting on the settee, glowering at me.

 

*****

Danny wasn't happy when the newspapers reported the thefts of the Charlemagne Crucifix and the Richelieu Chalice. "Why didn't you TELL me about these?"

"Well, it didn't seem very smart to only take the La Pucelle Reliquary, and leave those two other pretty-shinies behind. People would have started asking awkward questions."

"That's NOT what I'm talking about! Why didn't you bring them here?"

"Don't worry! They're in a safe place."

"What's the matter? Don't you trust me?"

"No."

"And what am I supposed to tell Von Brunstedt?"

"Tell him that he's getting what he ordered; if he wants either of the other dinguses, tell him to put in a bid."

"Okay, where are they?"

"Danny, if you don't know, then Von Brunstedt can't browbeat it out of you. Just think how tough you'll look when he pulls out his big intimidation guns, and you don't break, 'cause you know that if you do, you're toast."

I went along with them this time, as an 'ornament'; sure enough, Von Brunstedt claimed that the Crucifix and the Chalice were a part of the package deal. It was fun watching Danny C. squirm and tell Von Brunstedt to pound sand.

*****

It was two rather tense weeks before Von Brunstedt came to us again. Well, it was tense for Danny C.; the word was that LeFabre was back in France, though he was currently cooling his heels in Provence. But the very fact that LeFabre was in the same time zone was enough to make Danny sweat. I tried to get his mind off of LeFabre by having him go around to the various specialty collectibles dealers and see what was shaking, just to keep our cover story viable. Me? I was enjoying a couple of weeks without having to wipe Danny's nose. I spent much of that time with Gerard, improving Franco-American relations.

But all the waiting around didn't seem to be doing Keith that much good. He was very quiet, and he was drinking heavily. I was starting to worry about him.

Von Brunstedt contacted us at the casino again. We'd become regulars there, and I knew most of the bimbos in the powder room by name. Not that we were on talking terms. Danny had become a regular at the poker tables, and he was good enough to completely pay off his roulette debts with his winnings. Mind you, he'd probably still be toast in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, but then Poker is The American Game.

Von Brunstedt 'invited' us in for a private game. Again, with the cutesy talking around the subject! I'll spare you the 'oh, we're ever so clever, no one can pin anything on us' details. Von Brunstedt wanted Danny to get the contents of a safe deposit box. A safe deposit box at Fenninger's et Fils Securetie Companie Cie. Where some of the other pieces of the Menorah are kept. Three guesses as to what's in the safe deposit box, and the first two don't count.

 

*****

"I won't do it!"

"You have to do it, Danny."

"But it's embarrassing!"

"What's so embarrassing about asking Von Brunstedt for any architect's plans or blueprints of Fenninger's?"

"Dammit, I'm supposed to be this Master Thief! Master Thieves don't go around asking for help! What good are we if we have to go begging for help from our clients?"

"Just tell him that you've run into a schedule issue, and you can't spare the time to research Fenninger's the way that you would normally. The only reason that he'd subcontract getting Panel's pieces from the safe deposit box is that he couldn't pull it off himself. And he wouldn't admit that to himself unless he'd exhausted every possibility. And in exhausting those possibilities, he would have researched every aspect of Fenninger's and its staff. And once he went to the bother and expense of collecting that information, he wouldn't just throw it away. Ergo, he has detailed information about Fenninger's. If anything, you could make a production of showing what a professional you are, by knowing that he has the information."

 

*****

Several days later, I lay across my bed, with papers and plans strewn all around me. The cats were earning their cream by keeping the papers from blowing away. Keith knocked at my door. "Hey, Steve."

"Hey, Keith. Something up?"

"No, I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"Oh, believe me, this is gonna be a toughie."

"Y'mean, you can't just, y'know...Catwoman in?"

"I can sneak, climb and pounce, but I can't teleport, Keith. The problem is that Fenninger's is a very old firm, and they base their business on very sound, well-tested security procedures. They're old fashioned and simple, but that's an asset for them here. Everything about them is simple, sound, and very effective. If there were any holes in their system, they found and plugged them years ago."

I picked up a page. "Of course, the perennial chink in any security's armor is their personnel. But this is one chink that I really don't wanna exploit."

"What's that?"

"Fenninger's Assistant Manager of Logistics, M'sieur Gerard Trenaud."

"Isn't that the guy that you been seeing?"

"Yeah."

"Howcum he never told you?"

"It never really came up. Besides, it can't be all that interesting, doing Logistics for a security vault company. My guess is that it's that really detailed stuff where you really have to know your stuff for short periods of time, and then you spend a lot of time twiddling your thumbs."

"Why?"

"Why else would he free enough that Fenninger's felt that they could spare him to run errands for a particularly demanding client like Pernelle?"

"Steve, what are you gonna do when we do get all the pieces of the Menorah?"

"Sell it to LeFabre, so that he'll get off of our backs."

"Yeah, I know, but what are you gonna do about, y'know, bein' a girl?"

"Do? What do you mean, 'do'?"

"Are you gonna change yourself back into, y'know, Steve?"

"Why would I want to do that, Keith? The only thing that I really had as a guy that I don't have now is a reputation as a scholar, and I should be able to get that back with a little work. All things considered, I regard this as an upgrade."

"So, you're gonna stay the way you are?"

"Well, I could do without the threat of an international criminal wanting to break my kneecaps, but yeah. Once we get LeFabre the whole Menorah, I'm free and clear."

"And you're gonna keep seeing this Gerard guy?"

"Well, if I can find a way of doing this without completely trashing our relationship, yeah. I'm not saying that he's 'Mister Right', but he's definitely 'Mister Right Now'."

Keith seemed to want to say something more, but the words wouldn't come out. He turned and left. When I get the time, I have got to figure out what's ailing him.

*****

Danny was gearing up for another day of making the rounds and gawking at precious collectible knick-knacks. "Don't bother," I told him. "We're going house hunting."

"Oh, we're setting up housekeeping, are we, dear?" Danny responded with a saccharine overload of mock sweetness.

"No, we're setting up Hogan's Alley. I think I've figured out a way around their security. Unfortunately, it's very complicated, and it's gonna take all three of us doing exactly what has to be done with clockwork precision."

"Oh, Crap."

"On the Up side, even if we blow it, there's no way that they'll be able to prove that we did a blessed thing."

"Uh, remember, Stevie - this is France, not the US or even Britain. They operate under the Code Napoleon here, and the burden of proof is on the accused."

"True, but even under the Code Napoleon, les Cops have to meet a Standard of Proof in order to prosecute; they can't just drag people off the street and charge them with stuff."

"And what does this house that you're so hot on have to do with this?"

"We need to find a house that has at least a superficial resemblance to the wing of Fenninger's that the safe deposit box that we want is in. We set up a mock-up of the vault and we run through the exact sequence until we can do it blindfolded. Besides, it will help us iron out an kinks in the plan." 

"Hmmm...how are we gonna explain suddenly moving out to the stick?"

"We don't. You claim that you're looking for a Real Estate venture to use as Equity in your other dealings. We work out there during the day, claiming to be doing preliminary renovations, and come back to Paris in the evening."

"And how do we explain being so particular about the house we buy?"

"So, you're picky! The French respect picky!"

*****

Gerard sounded delighted when he finally got me on the phone. "Steffi! Where have you been all week?"

"Oh, out in the 'burbs."

"'Burbs'?"

"The suburbs. My boss Flaherty has decided that his deals will wheel a little more freely if he own Real Estate here in France as equity. We spent the better part of the week finding just the place, and now Flaherty says that we're going to be spending more time getting the place up to specs, while the place is still in Escrow."

"'Up to specs'? Why would you be needed to supervise the reconstruction?"

"What supervise? Flaherty, Conners and me are going to do it ourselves."

"Yourselves? And the Building Board allowed this?"

"Flaherty pulled out a permit from somewhere. Anyway, Conners used to do general contracting work back in the States. Besides being cheaper, Flaherty will be able to say that the place has American plumbing and wiring. That should add at lest 20% to the resale value."

"Is this going to take very long?"

"Oh, do you miss me?"

"Only in the way that a man dying of thirst misses water."

"Oh, how sweet! Tell you what, I think I can pry myself away from my boss long enough to whip up a lovely picnic lunch for next week."

"I doubt I can hold out that long. You are addictive, Chou-chou, I need my Steffi fix."

"Mmmm...I think I might be able to spring myself from durance vile tomorrow night."

"I will steel myself for the ordeal of waiting that long." And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why the French enjoy the reputation that they have - that streak of unrepentant cornball drama.

*****

I was carefully matching the slug to the mold on the small grinding wheel as Danny and Keith came in from their practice. "So, how did it go?"

"We got it down to an average of 45 seconds for Ox's bit and 56 seconds for mine."

"Using how many tries?"

"Stephanie, we did it over a hundred times - we could do it in our sleep now. Besides, you said that you had a way of fixing it so that even if things got bollixed, there'd be no proof. Now that that we've learned our tricks, mind clueing us in on what that is?"

"Why not? Okay, as I see it, there are three things that could get us nailed - One, you could be spotted opening the safe deposit box; Two, they could find this key or the lockpicks on you; Three, they could find the pieces of the Menorah on us when we try to leave."

I picked up one of the three whitish patches that I'd been working on. "This is an inductive interface. Keith, when you slap it on the junction box here-" I pulled out the laying schematic of Fenninger's that all three of us probably knew my heart by now, "-it will cause all the closed circuit TV monitors to go into a closed loop, playing the last five minutes recorded over and over. Mind you, this is a very cheap circuit, and it won't last for more than maybe five minutes. One more reason for you to get in and out as quickly as you can. Danny, when you come back from doing your little trick, you touch this patch with your cigarette." I took the lit cigarette from his hand and touched it to the patch. It instantly shriveled up into an ash. I blew the ash away. "This patch is printed on thin aluminum, with a backing of magnesium foil. It will be just hot enough to ash the circuitry, but not hot enough to cause a flash or to create a scorch mark on the panel."

"Okay, that's One - what about the lockpicks and the key?"

I held up a spoon from a packet of them that I had on the table next to the other stuff. I tapped it against my cup of coffee, letting the metallic sound ring. Then I stirred the coffee vigorously, and pulled out the spoon again. The bowl of the spoon was gone, apparently melted off.

"Yer gonna melt 'em in Acid?" Keith asked incredulously. "How are we gonna explain carrying around Acid?"

"Not Acid, just French coffee - which is close enough, I guess. I got these spoons from a joke shop; they're made of an alloy that was developed for low-temperature welding. They melt at comparatively low temperatures-"

"Like a cup of hot coffee," Danny ventured.

"Exactly. But they're strong enough to work as lockpicks and keys - for short periods of time. I'm just finishing turning the shaft of one of these spoons into the key. Danny, when we go in, you will be carrying a cup of coffee. While you are working, Keith will hold it for you as he blocks the view. When you're finished, *Plop!* into the coffee the keys and picks go, never to be seen again."

Danny grimaced. "I won't have to drink the coffee afterwards, will I? It will look pretty suspicious if I don't, seeing as how I went to the bother of keeping it with me."

I took a slurp of my coffee. "Not to worry - the alloy melts, but it doesn't dissolve; it sinks immediately to the bottom of the cup."

Keith picked up the key that I'd been working on. "If we have a key to the safe deposit box, why do we need the lockpicks? And where did you get this key, anyway?"

"Like a lot of secure vault firms, Fenninger's uses a two-key system, one for them, another for the person renting the box. Picking both locks at the same time is impossible, but with one key, it can be done. This is the Master Key that fits almost all the boxes. I made a wax impression of the copy of the Master Key that was in Gerard's pocket, the last time that I was over there."

"He didn't notice?"

"He wasn't in any condition to notice." I smirked.

"Hold on," Danny quibbled. "I thought that this guy Gerard did Logistics for Fenninger's. Why does a guy who does Logistics have a Master Key in his pocket?"

"Danny, WHY would Fenninger's send a Logistics man to pick up a valuable First Edition for their valued client, Professor Pernelle? And WHY would a safe deposit box firm need a Logistics expert in the first place? Gerard works for their security detail! I picked up on that almost immediately. If you're going to be a Master Criminal, Danny, you have GOT to try and keep up!"

Danny glowered at me. Being a Master Thief was not going the way that he'd always dreamed. "Okay, so you're a fucking genius. What's number Three?"

"The third thing that could trip us up is if we're caught with the pieces of the Menorah on us. BUT, that only trips us up if we don't have a valid excuse for having possession of them. When we go in, we'll go through a metal detector. You, Mister Eric Flaherty, obtainer of precious artifacts, will have on you a trick sealed paper envelope containing three of our pieces of the Menorah: to wit, the 'Crown', 'Kingdom' and 'Splendor' fragments. The 'Foundation' fragment is too unique, but it would take someone who knows what the Menorah is about to tell the others apart at first glance. You will also have provenances for the pieces that you are carrying as part of a deal that you will complete once you have dropped your 'assistant' off for her picnic with her boyfriend. That is our excuse for getting the pieces inside Fenninger's.

"Once we are inside, and your possession of three gold pieces are acknowledged, you will slip the envelope to me. I will then add the fragments to this rather gaudy charm bracelet-" I held up one wrist, showing off a clunky charm bracelet with a couple of bits already on it, "-which I have made sure that Gerard has already seen - _with the fragments already attached_. So, our pieces all but disappear as far as Fenninger's security is concerned. When you get the safe deposit box open, you put those pieces in this second envelope with the trick seal. When we leave, Fenninger's will already have recorded the gold bits in the envelope as YOUR PROPERTY." I leaned back and waited for applause.

"Hold On - How are we supposed to get the lockpicks and the Master Key past the metal detector?"

"Ah!" I almost laughed. "That is the key to this entire bit of business!" I got up, went into the suite's kitchenette, and brought back two deep metal foil trays. "My excuse for getting into Fenninger's - and you two as well - is that I've arranged for a picnic. We come in, I explain my business with Gerard to the nice guards, and then bustle along to try and cozen his boss into letting Loverboy off to enjoy it with me. Oh! But the dessert for my delicious picnic lunch is a lovely Baked Alaska!" I gestured at the trays. "'Oh, Kind Guard, do you have a place where I can keep my delicious Baked Alaska cold, while I speak to that silly boss of Gerard's? Oh! You have a kitchen? Perfect! Mister Flaherty and his bodyguard will take the picnic into the kitchen and put the Baked Alaska in the refrigerator to keep it nice and cool. Merci, merci, merci, Kind Guard!' You will note that other than this locked security door, the kitchen isn't near to, and doesn't open into any of the security areas, so the guards won't bother watching you." I held up another melting alloy key. "The key to the security door, courtesy of Gerard's key ring."

"But the metal detector-"

I held up a finger for silence. I put the lock picks, the keys and the electronic patches into a zipper-lock plastic bag, put the bag in one of the trays and stacked that tray in the other one. I gestured over the tray. "Now cover this with Baked Alaska. The metal foil will not only fool the metal detector, but it will conceal them just in case they run the whole megillah through the X-ray machine."

"Why not hide them between the trays?"

"Please! That would be the FIRST place that any decently paranoid security man would look! Besides, this gives them a place to look and feel like they're doing their jobs."

"What if the guards wonder about us not coming back from the kitchen?"

"Just tell the guard to tell me that you'll wait for us in the kitchen. Which will suit them just fine, 'cause they think that it's a secure place for you to be, without them keeping tabs on you."

Keith looked at the schematic. "Steve, are you SURE this is going to work? It's pretty complicated."

"Keith, the beauty of all of this is that they'll never see it coming. I have every contingency covered. The only way they'll ever be able to catch us at this, is if they stop us right there in the lobby and search the Baked Alaska. And who's going to do that?"

*****

I phoned Gerard directly to his desk. "Gerard! I finally got the day off! I have an absolutely wonderful picnic lunch prepared."

"Steffie, I'd love to accommodate you, but I'm afraid that I'm rather busy today."

"I made Baked Alaaaskaaa..."

"And I'm sure that it's delicious, but I'm afraid that my employer M. Fenninger-"

"Oh. Pooh! You just leave him to me. When I spell it out for him, you'll be out with me before you can say 'Supercallifragilisticexpialidocious'."

"Mon Dieu! The sound of it is something quite atrocious!"

Gerard tried to convince me not to come, but I'm woman enough now to not let the trivial objections of a mere man keep me from what I want. God, I love being a woman!

*****

On cue, I breezed up to the doors of Fenninger's et Fils wearing a very fetching picnicking outfit with a picnic basket on one arm. Danny followed behind me, also carrying a picnic basket, but having a hand free for his paper cup of hot coffee. And poor Keith was laden with another larger picnic basket with the foil wrapped Baked Alaska on top. The front guard looked at us and said, "And what is your business here, Mam'selle?"

"I'm here to kidnap your M'sieur Trenaud. Would you tell him that Miss Kitteridge is here to see him?"

"Very well, but would you step inside? I'm afraid that you'll have to go through the Security Scanner first."

We went through the whole security wringer, just as we'd planned. Danny showed them his sealed envelope and had 'three pieces of antique jewelry' recorded as being brought in, and we passed through the metal detector, as they searched through the picnic baskets, and passed the Baked Alaska trays around the metal detector.

Then we were in.

I was about to ask where Gerard's office was, when I heard a familiar voice say, "It is a pity, Mam'selle, that you should go through all that effort, just to walk into a trap."

I turned and saw Professor Pernelle standing there, openly gloating. Gerard was standing besides him, looking studiously neutral. That appearance of neutrality disappeared when he told the guards, "Hold them for the police."

*****

Inspector Thierry Dumont of the Paris CID looked at the Professor with the weary philosophical resignation that many civil servants have. He was a stout man with a pear shaped face, a long sloping nose over a pushbroom mustache, and heavy-lidded cocker spaniel eyes. "Now, let me understand this - you seized these people because you say that they are going to TRY to break into your safe deposit box and steal the contents, and you want me to arrest them for attempted theft."

"No, not ATTEMPTED theft," M'sieur le Professeur interrupted, "achieved theft! These people are behind the thefts of the Le Homme avec le Masque d'Fer compilation from le Societie Literaire Catholique, and the Richelieu Chalice, the Charlemagne Crucifix and the La Pucelle Reliquary from le Cathedral d'Sainte Margaret!"

Dumont's eyebrows raised. "Indeed? And exactly how do you know that, M'sieur le Professeur?"

"I - have my sources of information."

"And did these 'sources of information' provide you with any proof of these charges?"

"M'sieur Trenaud here was with the Kitteridge woman when the Le Homme avec le Masque d'Fer compilation was stolen."

"Indeed? My understanding is that the Inspector in charge of the case is proceeding under the theory that the compilation was stolen months, if not years ago."

"That is what they WANT him to believe! It was only stolen a few weeks ago, right from under that fool's Barrebrandt's nose!"

"An achievement indeed - IF that's what happened. M'sieur Trenaud?"

"I was at le Society Literaire Catholique when the forgery was discovered - and burst into flames."

"My understanding is that the remains were completely contaminated by fire extinguisher foam, so there is no proof one way or the other. Mam'selle, what do you have to say about this?"

"Say? My big chance to gain official recognition goes up in flames and now I'm accused of stealing it? I could say a lot, but nothing in the kind of language that a lady is supposed to know!"

"And when were you ever a lady?" Pernelle sneered. "Trenaud, tell the Inspector about how you went to le Cathedral d'Sainte Margaret with this little witch."

Gerard related our trip to the cathedral. Dumont raised an eyebrow. "Mam'selle, the young man places you at the scene of not one but two crimes. Once is coincidence, twice is evidence."

"I was there checking the provenance of the Richelieu Chalice! It's part of my Job."

Dumont turned to Danny. "And she works for you, Non? And what was your interest in the Richelieu Chalice?"

Fortunately, if there's anything that Danny can do right, it's lie to Cops. "I was acting as a middleman for someone interested in buying what was presented to him as the 'real' Richelieu Chalice. But Stephanie's research turned up that it was just the forgery that the Rectors at the Cathedral had made up to fool the Nazis. So, no sale."

Dumont turned back to Pernelle. "So far, M'sieur le Professeur, all I have to hold them on is a couple of admittedly suspicious circumstances and your claim that they came here to pull off another fantastic robbery. Now, would YOU go before a Civil Prosecutor with that? Now, if they had actually tried to take anything, that would be another matter."

"But I couldn't let them get that far! If I had, they would have put their insidious scheme into effect, and we never could have proven a thing! I even had what I was keeping in my safe deposit box removed to my office."

"That may very well be, M'sieur le Professeur, but you still haven't proven anything. So far, your story is full of sound and fury, but it signifies nothing."

"Hah! But I CAN prove something! I can prove that these three came here with the express intention of breaking into my safe deposit box! If I can prove that-"

"Yes, yes, then your charges as to the other thefts is much more credible. But you still haven't proven anything."

"Oh? Then watch THIS!" Pernelle pulled a latex glove out of his coat pocket and pulled it on. He put the tray containing the Baked Alaska on the desk and opened up the foil.

"No! My Baked Alaska!"

"What's the matter, trollop? Afraid that I'll find your burglary tools?"

"Hold on, Inspector!" Danny interrupted. "Before he does anything, I insist that you search this man! I wouldn't put it past this nutbar to try and plant something in there."

Dumont grabbed the Professor's wrist. "The man has a point. Stand still, M'sieur le Professeur."

"What? This is an outrage!"

"Look at it this way, Professeur - if you find anything, this is the only way to prove that you didn't plant it."

Pernelle grudgingly allowed the search, which turned up nothing. All but sticking out his tongue at me, he pulled up the foil and reached in. Then he felt around.

"Do you know how long I worked on that?" I growled at him.

Then he felt around some more. And then some more. I groaned as he turned my beautiful Baked Alaska into something that more resembled the Okeefenokee swamp.

"It MUST be in here somewhere..."

"What are you going to do next, spit in it?" I grumped at him. "I thought that you French had respect for food!"

He totally lost his temper and dug through the ice cream like a terrier looking for a rat. Then he spun around and snapped at me, "Where IS it?"

"Where is What?"

"The burglary tools! The copies of the Master Key and the key to the kitchen security door? The electronic override patch!"

"Jeez, watch Mission: Impossible much?"

The Prof did a near-wig out, shook his head to clear his mind, and then got an idea. "I know! I can prove it! That one! He has a manila envelope in his pocket."

"Oh, wow. How does he do it?" Danny drawled sarcastically. Give him this, even when he's taken by surprise, he lands on his feet. "I only registered it at the gate!"

"I can tell you exactly what's in that envelope."

"Again, I registered it at the gate - Antique jewelry."

"No!" Pernelle almost hissed in triumph. "What is in that envelope are three fragments of an ancient Hebrew relic that were stolen from the offices of the Vatican Jerusalem Studies Program in Rome in 1962, and never recovered. Not officially, anyway. It may not be proof positive, but it should be enough to hold and fingerprint them. Their criminal records should make them prime suspects for the other robberies."

Gerard added. "Inspector Dumont, I realize that the Professor isn't making a very convincing argument, but consider this. His information was good enough that he predicted that the Le Homme avec le Masque d'Fer compilation would be stolen. And he arranged for me to attach myself to Mam'selle Kitteridge as she examined it."

"What? You arranged to 'attach' yourself to me? Gerard, if I ever get my hands on you, you Whore, I'm going to 'detach' your BALLS!"

Gerard ignored me with blithe serenity. "And then M'sieur le Professeur predicted the theft of the La Pucelle Reliquary. M'sieur Flaherty then became interested in the Richelieu Chalice, which was in the same strongbox as the Reliquary. Obviously they took the Chalice and the Charlemagne Crucifix as well, for the simple reason that they could."

"Hold on, Pretty Boy," Danny interrupted. "I happen to remember hearing about the theft, as I was interested in the Chalice for professional reasons. And the night that it was stolen, I happen to have an airtight alibi - my bodyguard and I were at Le Cercle d'Tychee from 10 PM to two in the morning. My hotel will verify our return there at 2:30 and my wake up call at seven. Or am I supposed to have snuck out of my hotel, committed a complex robbery, returned and gotten a decent night's sleep - all in four and a half hours?" Trust Danny to remember his alibi.

I glared at Gerard. "And am _I_ supposed to have scaled the walls of the cathedral basilica, wormed through the electronic security, overpowered the guard and made away with three heavy relics - ALL BY MYSELF?" Yeah, yeah, I know that's pretty much exactly what I did. But y'gotta admit it does sound pretty incredible when you put it that way, doesn't it?

Dumont looked at Gerard dubiously. But then, a phone rang and Gerard answered it. "Well, this should be the thing that you need to confiscate that envelope, Inspector - that was the courier that we sent the Professor's fragments with. He was ambushed on the street and his package was taken from him. Obviously, Mister Flaherty really DID foresee every contingency. Except being searched."

Dumont walked up to Danny. "M'sieur Flaherty, would you please hand over that envelope?"

"This envelope is sealed and notarized, Inspector. If the seal is breached, I'll have to take the jewelry back to the appraiser, have it authenticated _AGAIN_ and quite possibly lose my sale."

"That's as may be, M'sieur. Hand it over."

"Inspector, you have my word on it. There are NO ancient relics in here, just some antique jewelry."

"Hand it over."

With a sigh, Danny handed the envelope to Dumont, who broke the seal and up ended it. Out from the envelope fell two dangly earrings and a cameo brooch. Danny did a double take, but recovered quickly. "You DO realize that I'm going to make very loud complaints about this, don't you?"

Dumont glowered at the Professor. "M'sieur, I think that you would find civil proceedings for Slander both more satisfying and profitable."

I crossed my arms and smirked at Pernelle. Pernelle snarled back at me, and then spotted my charm bracelet. "AHA! The envelope was just a diversion! THIS is the proof that I was looking for!" He rushed over and tore my charm bracelet from my wrist.

"Hey! Give that back, you screwball! Inspector, are you going to let this farce go any further?"

Pernelle leered at me. "Farce, is it? Well then, how do you explain THIS?" He held up one of the charms, that, I admit, looked suspiciously like the 'Splendor' fragment.

"Explain what? Okay, it's a little gaudy, but it was a gift!"

"A gift? A gift that just happens to bear the Hebrew sigil for 'Splendor'? Tell me, Miss Kitteridge, who is your admirer, that he gives you gifts of flawless diamonds the size of my thumb?"

"Diamond? You think that that's a Diamond?" I started to giggle.

Pernelle grabbed a drinking glass. "Of course it's a diamond! The 'Splendor' fragment is capped by a flawless white diamond! This should prove it!" He scratched the crystal against the drinking glass. And scratched it. And scratched it.

Then he looked at the crystal, utterly deflated. "It's..._not_ a diamond... But - but WHO would give you a cheap quartz charm that just happens to look exactly like the 'Splendor' fragment?"

Dumont finally took control of the interrogation back. "Indeed, Mam'selle - who DID give you those charms?"

I looked at Danny. "It was our client. It was just after I explained why the Hungarian's chalice couldn't have been the real Richelieu chalice, remember?" Danny nodded, not really knowing where this was going.

"Mam'selle - exactly WHO is this client of yours?"

I looked at Danny again. He cleared his throat and said, "His name is Von Brunstedt."

Dumont's heavy lidded eyes snapped open for a second. "Would that be Eigen Deider Von Brunstedt?"

"I dunno - I never caught his middle name."

"Mam'selle - would Herr Von Brunstedt have had anything to do with you discovering this 'irregularity' with the Le Homme avec le Masque d'Fer compilation that M'sieur Trenaud makes so much of?"

"Wellll...I was researching that volume of Francois Villon poetry for him when I found out about that paper stoppage. And my source for that DID come from Herr Von Brunstedt..."

Dumont sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Let me guess - and the 'client' that you were acting as middleman in the Richelieu Chalice matter for was Von Brunstedt as well?" Danny nodded.

Dumont turned and looked sourly at Professor Pernelle. "M'sieur le Professeur - would you be so accommodating as to inform me as to the exact source of all this oh, so timely information that you've been privy to?"

Pernelle looked like he'd just swallowed a frog.

Gerard didn't look too happy, either. "Inspector, are you saying that Von Brunstedt orchestrated all of this, just to get us to remove Professor Pernelle's fragments from the vault to where they could get at them?"

Dumont just shot him a 'You Idiot' look. Then he turned to us and said, "Mam'selle, Monsieurs, my most abject apologies. There is no need for you to be detained any longer. Feel free to take what is left of your picnic and enjoy it." He looked mournfully down at the ruined Baked Alaska. He stuck a finger in the ice cream and tasted it. His eyes popped open.

I leaned over and said confidentially, "The secret is to use real ice cream. There's this place on the Rue d' Pontaine, Mallovre et Fils; they make their own ice cream, right there on the premises, with real cream, and no preservatives, fillers, or artificial flavors, coloring, or thickeners."

Pernelle sputtered, "WHAT? You're going to just let them go?"

Dumont glared at Pernelle. "And with what am I supposed to charge them? NOT Breaking and Entering? NOT having burglary tools in their possession? NOT being in possession of stolen goods? M'sieur le Professeur, with all due respect to your position, if anyone here is in a position to press charges, it would be Mam'selle Kitteridge!"

"What charge?"

Dumont's eyes flickered down to the Baked Alaska. "Vandalism."

Dumont turned back to me. "As I said, you may go and take that poor mutilated confection with you. Though I don't know what you'll do with it."

I picked up the Baked Alaska tray. "Oh, don't worry - I know exactly what to do with it." With that, I dumped the whole soggy, melted mess over Pernelle's head.

*****

 

We piled the picnic baskets into the car and drove off. Danny sulked in the back seat until he couldn't take it any longer. "You played me, Steve."

"Come again?"

"You knew that Von Brunstedt was setting us up. How?"

"Well, it was a Tad obvious. First, Gerard shows up just as I pick up The Dishonest Alchemist at Thibault's. Then Von Brunstedt sends us after one target after another, and Gerard just happens to invite himself along on each one of them. And, Gerard was just a touch too interested in our business."

"But how could Pernelle know so much about our plan to break into his safe deposit box?"

"The same way that he knew about the 'Man in the Iron Mask' job and the Reliquary Job - Von Brunstedt was feeding him information."

"But Von Brunstedt would only know about the targets - how did he know the exact details, like my having the fragments in that manila envelope? And why weren't they there?"

"For the same reason that the keys and picks and stuff weren't under the Baked Alaska - I took them out. Von Brunstedt has our hotel suite bugged, and I made sure that he knew exactly those details that he could leak to Pernelle to create a trap that we could slip out of without a hitch."

"Our hotel is bugged?"

"Of course it is - it was bugged the day after we made ourselves known to Von Brunstedt. That's why I made sure that we never discussed our plan for getting into Fenninger's secure areas beyond the bits involving the keys. I had to set up a scenario where Pernelle would be too scared of the oh-so-clever burglars to let us past the lobby. If I had let him wait for us to make our moves, then we woulda been screwed, 'cause there was no way that that rigmarole that I had you guys practicing would have gotten you past their security."

"Ah, Steve?" Keith asked from the front seat. "'Scuze me if I don't get it - WHY didn't you discuss that stuff where the Kraut could hear it? If you was settin' Pernelle up, why not?"

"Because the stuff that I had you guys practicing wouldn't work, that's why!"

"Hunh?"

"Keith, Von Brunstedt has had those plans to Fenninger's security for years. Why wouldn't he just go in and get the fragments himself, it were possible? Why? Because it ISN'T possible! Fenninger's is rock solid! The only way to get Pernelle's fragments was to get the Prof all paranoid and finesse him into taking them out. Von Brunstedt's problem was that he couldn't get the Professor to move his fragments from the safety of Fenninger's. So, he sets us up as this big Master Thief threat to scare the Professor. I picked up on that almost immediately, but I knew that we couldn't get the fragments out of Fenninger's any other way, so I played along."

"Dammit, why didn't you TELL me any of this?" Danny fumed.

"The hotel was bugged, remember? I couldn't take the risk of either of you guys slipping up - or worse, falling into bad acting."

"But Von Brunstedt has Pernelle's fragments now! And he'll just add them to the pieces that he has stashed in that bank, where we can't get at them, either. So, how has our situation improved?"

"Our situation has improved, because the Police will seize the fragments as evidence against Von Brunstedt when they open up his safe deposit boxes."

"And why would they do that?"

"The Professor is still a very influential man in Paris - right about now, he's probably burning up the wires pulling strings to get Von Brunstedt's place searched."

"So what? After that farce back there, Pernelle's credibility is so shot that there isn't a chance in hell that they'll do anything as drastic as force open a safe deposit box."

"Oh, they will, after they find the Richelieu Chalice and the Charlemagne Crucifix that I hid in Von Brunstedt's townhouse. Les Flics have wanted to have a nice long talk with Herr Von Brunstedt for years, but they could never pin anything on him. But Pernelle still has enough juice to get a search warrant, and once they find those dinguses, the Cops will crack Von Brunstedt like a walnut."

Danny sputtered. "You planted the Chalice and the Crucifix at Von Brunstedt's? But they were worth Millions!"

I gave Danny a pussycat grin. "That's the beauty of it. If you didn't know that a magical power like the Menorah was up for grabs, who would believe that anybody would just plant precious artifacts to frame someone?"

Danny slumped back in his seat, arms folded. "So, the Cops take the fragments into custody - So What?"

"So, we just finessed the Cops into bringing both Pernelle's and Von Brunstedt's fragments out of their hidey-holes, to where we can get them."

"And where would that be?"

"At the Paris CID Evidence Locker. I checked it out when I was doing my prep for getting Von Brunstedt's INTERPOL files. It's not a crackerbox, but it's nothing that I can't get at. When les flics take those pieces as evidence, they are as good as ours."

Keith looked back at me from the front seat. "So, Steve, you was just playin' that Gerard guy? 'Cause it looked like you was really enjoying it."

"Oh, I was! I love playing Cat and Mouse, especially when the mouse - or, in this case, Rat - thinks that it's the cat."

 

*****

As we pulled up to the hotel, I had Keith drive past our window. I leaned my head out and checked the roofs near our windows. Yes, there was Milady DiWinter, and MacCavvety, and Lupin, all crouching around corners from our windows. Zorro and Phantomas were peering in the windows. I pulled my head back into the car. "We have visitors."

"How can you tell?"

"The Cats. They don't like strangers, especially ones who are tearing the suite apart."

"How can you tell that they're still looking? Maybe they already left."

"Not a chance. Zorro and Phantomas would have moved back in the second that they left. It ain't the Cops - we just left Fenninger's, and they haven't had time to get a warrant. Best guess is that it's Von Brunstedt's boys, looking for the 'Foundation' fragment."

Danny strummed his fingers against the upholstery. He really didn't like playing Watson to my Holmes. "And HOW would Von Brunstedt know that the 'Foundation' fragment is in our suite?"

"He has our suite bugged, remember? He heard our phony plans with the fragments. He thinks that we took the other pieces to Fenninger's, and that they're now headed for the Evidence Locker, where he no doubt has someone who will bring them to him. But, he needs ALL the pieces, so a little Breaking and Entering was called for."

"Well, if they're up there, then what do we do now?"

"Well, first we stop by a flower shop-"

 

*****

Danny, Keith and I went trooping through the lobby, each of us carrying a wrapped bunch of long-stemmed red roses. I chatted gaily with the hotel concierge, as if I'd just landed a role in a major movie or something. After all, we had to have a reason for all the flowers. Then we went to our room. I was chattering away about a 'nice M'sieur Arnaud' (well, there must be at least ONE nice M'sieur Arnaud in Paris) as we came in. There were two men standing there, one in a thick leather overcoat, the other in a simple raincoat. Then there was a Scots accented voice behind us, "Don't move."

I held my bunch of roses lightly in one hand. Then I heard a loud dragging sneeze. I swung the bunch of roses at the man in the leather overcoat. He blocked the roses with his forearm. A move that he immediately regretted as the length of pipe that I'd hidden among roses broke his Ulna. (Or was it his Radius? I can never keep those two straight.) I heard sounds of surprised pain as Danny and Keith used the momentary distraction of the Scotsman's allergic reaction to use their disguised clubs as well.

The guy in the raincoat reached for something under that raincoat, but never got it as I spun a kick that knocked him off his pins. He went down, and I put him down with a quick rap upside his head with the pipe. Then I kicked leathercoat right in the breadbasket, knocking the wind out of him, and took him down for the count with the pipe.

Danny and Keith made short work of their bunnies, and we laid them out on the floor. A quick pat-down revealed a gun each, a couple of silencers, a rather nasty length of wire with wooden handles that was probably used as a garrote, a straightrazor, a flask of chloroform and several other less sinister items, notably some handcuffs. As Danny and Keith searched their pockets, I disabled the listening devices. Of course, knowing exactly where they were was very helpful in feeding Von Brunstedt disinformation.

As we were bundling them up with their own handcuffs and electrical tape, a small bundle of gray came out from under the settee and clambered up into my arms for some much needed comfort. By the quality of her purrs, Raffles told me how she'd been keeping a close eye on the intruders.

Danny looked at me and said, "This is getting tiresome - how did you know that this asshole would react that way to the roses?"

"Simple, simpleton - that's Linus Naismith, Von Brunstedt's Number Two ass-kicker. If you'd read his dossier, you'd know that he's violently allergic to roses."

"And how could you be sure that it wasn't Von Brunstedt's Number ONE ass-kicker, Braudin?"

"What? Send a man who's violently allergic to cats into THIS suite? Are you kidding?"

Danny walked over to the coffee table, where the lockbox that we usually kept the fragment in was, lid open. "It's empty! They took the fragments!"

"Don't be ridiculous - if they'd found the pieces, they would have cleared out of here long ago." I took one of the latex gloves that the men had been carrying in their pockets, pulled it on and reached into the cat's litterbox. I pulled a slide-locked plastic bag with the Menorah fragments in it out from under the clay. "Never hide something where they won't THINK of looking for it, they may be as clever as you are - hide it someplace where they won't WANT to look for it." I rubbed my cheek against Raffles. "Cats - they're better than burglar alarms, and they purr."

"Maybe," Danny groused, "but burglar alarms don't shed or tear up the furniture."

I put the bag and Raffles down, and clapped my hands brusquely. "Okay, Chop, chop! We've gotta get out of here, Pronto! First, we take these idiots into the bathroom for safekeeping. Then we pack ASAP and get out of here. Danny, you WILL pay the hotel bill. We'll use the chloroform on the idiots just before we leave and take off the handcuffs - the hotel will have enough to complain about, with all the cat hair, we don't wanna give them any reasons to call the police."

Danny nodded. "Right. We can go to the house that we've been 'fixing up'."

"Only if we want Naismith here to break in and get some payback." I reached down into the pile of oddments that we'd retrieved from their pockets. "This should be the Keys to Naismith's place. There's no safer place to hide than in your enemies' back pocket."

"And what if Naismith here decides to come back to his place for a little shuteye?"

I picked up a length of pipe and with a few brisk strokes, broke the floating ribs on both sides of his chest and both kneecaps. "He won't."

*****

We took Naismith with us, hidden in a luggage cart, when we left. We dumped him in Montmarte with a judicious sprinkling of cheap booze on his face.

Y'know, Naismith doesn't have bad taste for a man who kills people for a living?

I ignored Danny's pacings and worryings for the next day and concentrated on catnaps, like a sensible predator. Then, at 9 in the evening, I did my warm-up exercises and slipped into my Catwoman leathers. As I slid one leg into the tight-fitting sheath, I felt that first sense that I've come to love so much. I was completely alive again. I was Catwoman, prowling the rooftops of Paris. I pulled the suit completely on and took a deep breath. I pulled the cowl over my head and felt a wide grin spread across my face. I stretched and luxuriated in the feel. Okay, it's not sex, but who says that you have to choose between the two? I briefly wondered what Gerard was doing, and pushed that thought aside. Now for the REAL fun!

Alas, it was really too easy. I was in and out, and the poor strutting fool would never know until he opened his secret safe. On one hand, that's exactly how something like that should go down, but on the other hand, a girl's got to have some fun!

The next morning, Danny came groggily out of Naismith's bedroom and promptly dropped his jaw on the floor. There, on the bar, next to where I was doing calculations, was the assembled Menorah of Solomon. "What? You broke into the Paris Police evidence locker, already?"

"What? You would expect less of Catwoman?" I smirked at him. "No, actually I stole it from the man who was the one pulling both Pernelle and Von Brunstedt's strings."

"Who?"

"M. Thibault, the noted expert on jewels, goldsmithing, antique jewelry, and unless I miss my guess, the Menorah of Solomon."

"Come again?"

"Danny, doesn't it strike you as a trifle ODD that there are so many forgeries of the fragments of the Menorah floating around? I mean, there are dozens of them, and almost all of them have exactly the right kind of gold, worked in almost exactly the right way, with almost exactly the right gemstone, cut in almost exactly the right way topping them. Why you'd need confirmation of its authenticity by the very best. Now, the very BEST would be Professor Pernelle, whom everyone knows was in the hunt for the Menorah. So, they go to the second best man, M. Thibault, who has a reputation for complete professional neutrality in the matter, and strict honesty in all his dealings. What no one knows it that M. Thibault is running a brisk business in creating forgeries of the Menorah fragments. Also, he's as interested in getting his hands on the Menorah as anyone else is - after all, he isn't getting any younger. My guess is that whenever anyone brought him a real piece of the Menorah, he'd swap it for one of his forgeries, and keep the piece. I get the impression that LeFabre was suspicious of him, which is why he was able to collect four pieces without losing them to Thibault."

"Was Pernelle suspicious of him as well?"

"I doubt it - Pernelle isn't the type to be on such buddy-buddy terms with someone that he didn't trust. And why have Thibault confirm them, when Pernelle himself was THE expert?"

"And you figured all this out from inferences that you picked up?"

"Aaahh - No. Y'see, that day when I went out, I didn't triangulate the pieces to Von Brunstedt's bank. I triangulated them to Thibault's. It took me a little while to figure it out, but by then the game was already in play."

"Why didn't you go get the pieces before now?"

"Why? I knew exactly where they were, and there were still Pernelle's pieces safely stashed away in Fenninger's, where no one in their right mind would go after them. I let Thibault play his cards, which were to play Von Brunstedt, who played Pernelle, who tried to play me." I paused, ticked all the players off on my fingers, and nodded. "Gawd, I love being the one who knows what's going on."

"Why didn't you TELL me?"

"Von Brunstedt is a very canny interrogator. I couldn't take the risk of you slipping up somehow. If it makes you feel any better, avoiding being under either Von Brunstedt's or Van Djass' eyes was a major reason that I avoided going to the casino as much as possible."

"And what about that business about raiding the Paris Police evidence locker?"

"That was in case the car had been bugged." Besides, I genuinely enjoy yanking his chain.

Danny blew a disgusted breath out, and slumped down at the bar. He looked at the Menorah. "Hold on - there's a piece missing!"

"Yes. The 'Justice' fragment. According to my notes, it hasn't reliably been found since 1937, when Von Diedenau went off and disappeared."

"Aahhh, Maaannnn!" Danny slammed his fist on the bar. To come so close!

"Not to worry, Pookie," I reassured him. "Momma will make it all bettah."

"How?"

"The pieces of the Menorah call out to each other, remember? And we have Nine of the Ten pieces."

"So? The last piece could be in Argentina by now! How could that dingus find the last piece across the fucking Atlantic Ocean?"

"Well, waddya know? You're actually catching on! Well, that is what all this-" I gestured at my calculations, "-is about."

"Hunh?"

"Well, I agree that as is, the Menorah probably wouldn't be able to deal with Trans-Atlantic distances. BUT, there is something that we can do to 'boost its reception' as it were. Remember those 'tellurgic energy flows' that we need to keep track of in order to get the Wishes to happen?"

"You're going to WISH for the last piece of the Menorah?"

"Nice try - if that would have worked, then LeFabre would have tried that when he had the central formation. No, I doubt that translocation is in the Menorah's bag of tricks. BUT, by tapping into those 'tellurgic energies' we should be able to get a fix on the approximate location of the last fragment. And once we're in the approximate area, the Menorah should be able to 'sniff out' the last piece without any help."

*****

We went to three different locations and managed to triangulate the rough location as being in or around Krakow, Poland. We finally tracked it down to where it was dangling from a watch chain. I will spare you any further details of the nasty business of grave robbing.

 

*****

Solomon's Menorah stood there, complete for the first time in almost Eighty years. The crystals shone in the muted lighting of the Warsaw hotel. Danny looked at it, his hands clenching greedily. "Now, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. It was agreed that we'd give it to LeFabre, to get him off of our collective backs."

"Hey, we have Aladdin's freaking LAMP here! We could wish that froggy asshole out of existence!"

"A Monumentally Bad Idea. Every folktale and myth about anything like Aladdin's Lamp all say that using the lamp to either kill or bring the dead back to life has horrible consequences. Besides, we'll get our wishes out of the Menorah."

"But you just said that you wanted to give it to LeFabre."

"And exactly HOW do you think that we're going to convince him that it _is_ ALL the pieces of the genuine Menorah of Solomon? Simple! What better proof could you ask for than the performance of a few miracles? AND LeFabre wouldn't respect us unless we asked for at least 15 Million Euros for the whole shebang. We use the Menorah, get our wishes, and then hand it over to LeFabre along with the documentation, for a nice sized fortune. LeFabre is off our backs, we each have a 5 Million Euro cut of the take, and we can get the fuck OUT of the Menorah hunting business.

"Which brings us to the next item on our agenda - what are our wishes going to be? There are three wishes, there are three of us, so it's one wish apiece. Now, since we're doing this at least in part for LeFabre to witness, at least one of those wishes should be immediate, on the spot, physical, and impossible to fake with stage magic, fancy makeup or electronic trickery of any kind. So Keith, you've been pretty quiet lately - what do you want?"

Keith stared at me hard for a few minutes, then looked down at his feet and mumbled, "Can't think'a nuthin'."

"Well, _I_ know exactly what I want to wish for!" Danny enthused.

"You'd better run this past me first," I said dryly.

Danny looked me straight in the eye and said, "I want to be Batman."

"SAY WHAT?" I almost screamed.

"You heard me - I want to be Batman. I want to be a man who's at the absolute peak of physical conditioning, with Black Belt level Martial Arts training, lightning reflexes, a razor-sharp mind, deductive, stealth and escape artistry skills up the whazoo, good looks, and the social graces of someone who's born to the purple."

"Danny, remember that talk that we had when we started all this mess? The Menorah won't be able to create Gotham City, or the Batcave, or the Batmobile, or Bruce Wayne's fortune, or his social contacts or Any of that! And you'll BE Batman - a revenge obsessed vigilante! You won't be YOU anymore!"

He grinned at me. "Not if you conceive of me as being Batman, but being me as well, sort of the way that I made you Catwoman, but still you at the same time."

He advanced on me. "I'm tired of being two steps behind you all the time. Right now, you are one of the smartest, fastest, sneakiest most skilled thieves in the world - I want to be in your league. You're one of the most beautiful, most competent women in the world - I want to be one of the most handsome, most daring, most competent MEN in the world."

He was right up in my face. "Think about it, Steffi - you can have what Selina Kyle has wanted for almost Seventy Years: A Batman who will be by her side as she cracks the treasure vaults of the world like peanuts. A man who will love her for all that she really is, without trying to force his narrow version of morality on her."

Then he put the capper on it. "I ORDER you to use the Menorah to turn me into Batman."

*****

Shit. I'd been wondering why he'd been so freaking docile lately. He was waiting for the just the right moment, when I wouldn't be expecting it.

*****

It took a little doing, but I managed to get a lead on LeFabre. I left a message for him that 'the American Cat Fancier wants to return his watch. If he wants his watch back, meet her in Saint Moritz. Hotel Lalique'.

*****

Everyone goes to Saint Moritz during the snow season, which is why going there in the off season is such a good deal. Top-notch facilities, well-trained staff that isn't overwhelmed for a change, and managements that really don't want to blow their reputations by shafting you during the downtime. Also, there are comparatively few guests around, so seeing who was on the scene wouldn't be that hard.

On the flip side, a trio like ours sort of sticks out like a sore thumb. So, Danny C. hired a Polish bodyguard, picked up a bimbo somewhere, and went to Saint Moritz by way of Zurich. Keith got a car and drove there himself. I flew over to the Riviera, picked up a cute Italian toy-boy named - hold on, I'll remember it in a second - oh, never mind. I picked up a toy-boy and took the train. The boy-toy didn't mind; as long as someone else was picking up the bill, I could have dragged him out to the middle of the Gobi Desert for all he cared.

We each checked into a different hotel and set about getting to know the lay of the land. We switched off keeping tabs on the Hotel Lalique, where we'd arranged to meet LeFabre. The real problem with this arrangement was keeping tabs without looking like you were keeping tabs. Keith and I managed by buying memberships in the Hotel's health spa, and dropping in regularly. Yep, we had the Hotel Lalique covered like a blanket.

So, naturally, the Hotel didn't really have anything to do with it.

I was having a light lunch at a nice little bistro when the man himself sat down in the chair across the table from me. "So, 'Miss Kitteridge', you wish to return my watch?"

"Sorry, I dumped that back in New York. But how about the Menorah of Solomon?"

"Now, now, you don't honestly think that simply returning what you stole from me will be enough?"

"Did I say anything about the pieces of the Menorah that you had?" I reached into my purse and pulled out the snapshot of the whole Menorah. I handed the snapshot to LeFabre. "There are three prices for the complete Menorah - First and foremost, your word that you'll leave me and my friends alone. Y'know, business is business, and that sort of thing."

"I'm willing to consider it. Second?"

"Fifteen Million Euros, in cash, no counterfeits, no 'Ransom Money' in invisible ink, no tracker devices, no tricks."

"Fifteen Million Euros, for the return of my own property?"

"No, we are returning the pieces that my friend stole, and the research materials as well, free of charge. The Fifteen Million is for the other six pieces. At a half mil a piece, I'd say that it's a bargain, no?"

"A Half Million Euros a piece is rather steep."

"True - for a piece of uncertain provenance. BUT, we can Prove that what we are providing is the One True Menorah of Solomon the Wise."

"And how will you do that?"

I grinned evilly. "There is only ONE way - we will demonstrate its authenticity by performing a set of minor miracles. That's the third price, that we are able to do this. This will, A: Prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that what we're selling is the real goods, B: Remove any further reason for us to personally desire the Menorah-"

"OTHER than the fact that it's priceless, and if you steal it back, you can sell it to one of the others for another fortune."

"Good point. Besides the Menorah and the research materials, we will provide a binding oath that we won't seek the Menorah again, for ourselves or on the behalf of others. A minor matter, which I throw into the pot, free of charge. And, lastly, C: It costs you absolutely NOTHING."

"You expect me to just stand there while you assemble the Menorah and use it to turn me into a pillar of salt?"

"Before we do anything, I will swear on the Menorah that I won't use any of the wishes to attack you in any way, shape or form. Do you honestly think that I'll risk screwing up my relationship with the Menorah, just as I'm about to tinker with the fabric of reality?"

LeFabre chewed on that for a while. "It will take me a while to round up that much cash."

"You have nine days."

"I may need more time than that. Fifteen Million Euros is a lot of money, especially in cash. Getting that much cash together will take time, especially doing it in a way that won't be noticed."

"I'm not the one setting the schedule - God is. The 'Test Conditions' will be right in nine days. After that, we'll have to wait another three weeks before a proper conjunction will form in Europe, and I'm NOT risking moving the Menorah by air. If you don't put a notice on the bulletin board at the ski lift on the western slopes that a Seal-Point Siamese Cat with a broken leg, wearing a green collar has been found, will the owner please contact your phone number, in NINE Days... Well then, we'll have a very hard three weeks in store for us, won't we?

"Remember, M'sieur LeFabre - every day that the Menorah isn't in YOUR HANDS, is another day that one of the other players in the game may catch up with us. And as things are, if they get us, they don't just get a piece of the puzzle, they get the whole treasure. The stakes have gone up, M'sieur - so don't crack foxy. After all, we have the Menorah - the only reasons that we simply don't Wish you out of existence is that there's no money in it for us, and it wastes a wish."

With that, I left the table (and the check for him to pick up). I had a rather amusing few hours after that, isolating the men that he'd put on my tail, and putting them in the hospital.

*****

The Home Stretch is always the hardest part of the game. The end is just in sight, and so many things can go wrong. Not that Danny was any help there. He insisted that we could get more money for the Menorah. Never mind that we were doing this mostly to get LeFabre off our backs. And Keith was kicking up a fuss for a change. But then, he'd been so quiet through most of this that he sort of has it coming, He wanted to be the one to make the wishes, while I insisted that _I_ be the one to use the Menorah. "Keith, I really think that I should be the one making the wishes. I understand the way that the Menorah works, and I can make sure that you don't frame the wish incorrectly. Exactly what IS your wish, anyway?"

Keith blushed. "Can't say. I know what it is, but I can't tell you."

Okay, this one's got me baffled. I can look at this from both the Male and Female perspectives, and I STILL don't know what's going through his head.

It was a hard week. Danny was crabbing for more money, Keith was pouting to be let to use the Menorah, and even that stupid toy-boy that I picked up was giving me crap. I sent Marcello - or whatever his name was - packing, and settled in to enjoy the peace and quiet. Man, was I glad that we were staying in separate hotels!

*****

Or at least I was while we were waiting.

 

*****

Just one day before our Astrologically determined deadline came due, I spotted a notice on the western slope's ski lift bulletin board as I walked by in on my daily walk. Written in English, German, French and Italian - 'FOUND: Seal-Point Siamese Cat with a broken leg, wearing a green collar. Will the owner please contact XXX-XXX-XXXX, as soon as possible.'

I casually made my way over to my hotel, picked up one of the books that I'd been using for research, and bookmarked three relevant sections. It would take him hours to calculate the exact time and location of the site, but he'd figure it out in time. I sauntered over to his hotel and called his number from the lobby. "M'sieur LeFabre? You put out a notice about a lost Seal Point Siamese with a broken leg? Well, it's not my pet, but I AM a Cat Fancier."

"Ah! I've been waiting to hear from you, Miss Kitteridge."

"You have the money?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid that in doing so, I managed to catch the notice of the usual players and a few of the inevitable jackals that sniff around these sorts of things."

"Yeah, well, what are you going to do? Enter into an apprenticeship and become a plumber?"

"You know, that might not actually be a step up, income wise?"

"How droll. Do we have a deal?"

"Yes. When and where?"

"Ask your desk clerk." I put the phone down and left the textbook at the desk for LeFabre. Expecting LeFabre to not try to pull a fast one was like expecting a Cable TV company to not hike rates up. I had to take precautions. It would have to be simple, effective, and nasty. Luckily, I'd seen this coming, and had just the thing.

I dropped by Danny's hotel and went up to his suite. The door was open. I found his bodyguard unconscious on the floor beside the bed and the bimbo tied up in the bathtub. The suite had been ransacked. Yep, LeFabre had pulled a fast one, but I hadn't seen it coming.

Then my cell phone started ringing. The caller ID said that it was Keith. I answered, but it immediately hung up, and then called again. I checked, and it just kept calling, hanging up and re-calling. It was from Keith's phone, so he must be trying to tell me something. He wanted me to know that something was up, and he couldn't talk for some reason. So, either he's following the guys who jumped Danny, or they already got around to jumping him, too. Well, it boils down to pretty much the same thing - Keith has a lot of absolutely sterling qualities, but ninja material, he ain't. If he tries to follow them, they WILL spot him and grab him. But then again, maybe that's his whole idea - they take him to where they have Danny, I come sneaking in and rescue them without him slowing me down.

Yep, Keith has it on the ball - he never deserved that 'Ox' tag that Danny hung on him.

*****

I followed Keith's signal with a signal tracer (courtesy of Catwoman's 'utility belt') to a chalet outside Saint Moritz with enough security for a visiting sheik. I managed to stealth in close enough to get an idea of the layout. I recognized a couple of Von Brunstedt's goons, so it wasn't LeFabre, and our deal (such as it was) was still viable. It took some doing, but I finally managed to find out where they had Keith and Danny - bound and gagged, down in the basement.

Unfortunately, that was ALL that I could do. Give Von Brunstedt his due, his security was top-notch. You can only do so much with the external security of a rental, but he'd put all the bells and whistles in the chalet itself. I could break in - given time. And Time was what we didn't have. I had a date with LeFabre, and I needed Keith and Danny there, too. If Von Brunstedt was this close, there was no way that we'd be able to dodge him for the three weeks until the next conjunction, even if LeFabre would stand for it. Right now, Von Brunstedt probably had men combing Saint Moritz for me.

Well, then, there's no reason to keep them waiting, now is there?

*****

I walked into the Hotel Lalique with a picnic basket on my arm and asked to get into a safe deposit box that I'd rented there. I more sensed than saw the two men who started following when I left the Hotel. They weren't being that obvious about it, but they were just blatant enough that a decent street operative should have been able to spot them. I let them herd me through the professionally picturesque town for a while. Finally, in a spot that you wouldn't think would make a good spot for an ambush, and so naturally, makes for a perfect spot for an ambush, two men stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

"Excuse me, gentlemen. I have an appointment that I have to get to."

"I'm sure that you do, M'mselle Kitteridge." I recognized the man who was speaking as Braudin, Von Brunstedt's favorite thug. He opened his jacket wide enough to show an automatic pistol tucked into the belt of his slacks. "I'm afraid that your friends won't be able to make your appointment, either. But then, you knew that, didn't you, my clever little lady?"

"We don't have those pieces of the Menorah anymore. We sold them to LeFabre. You guys play too rough."

"Oh, we play rough, all right. But if you sold your pieces to LeFabre, then why did your friend get in touch with my boss and offer to sell him the entire Menorah?"

"What?"

"Why do you think that we're here in Saint Moritz without so much a whisper of snow?"

"I should have known. Danny hasn't done anything really chuckleheaded in weeks - he was overdue."

Braudin snapped his fingers. "Enough of that. The basket. Now."

As I started to shift my balance to a more aggressive stance, the two guys behind me came up and took a hold of my arms. The guy beside Braudin pulled out a snub nosed revolver. Braudin himself slipped the picnic basket off my arm. "Well, let's see what Little Red Riding Hood has for Gran'mere."

He reached into the basket and immediately pulled it back out. Raffles came shrieking out of the basket and right into Braudin's face. Braudin immediately started sneezing furiously. The two idiots holding my arms flinched in surprise. I took advantage of that surprise to leverage the guy on my left into a throw on top of the guy with the snub-nose. The other guy tried to get a better grip on me. I turned that against him and threw him at Braudin.

Mind you, the sneezing only slowed Braudin down a little, just enough to get caught flat-footed by having a lackey thrown at him. But I took advantage of it, and slipped his automatic out from his belt. A quick couple of pistol-whips upside Braudin's head, and he was down for the count.

I managed to disarm the other guy as well, and was happily kicking one of the other guys in the teeth when I heard the sound of a car gunning its engines. But the sound of the motor didn't come my way; in fact, it faded into the distance. Then I noticed that there were only three guys sprawled on the sidewalk at my feet. And my basket was empty.

One of the goons had the presence of mind to realize that his real objective was to get what I'd been carrying, not bringing me in. *Sucker!*

Contentedly, I whistled for Raffles, and put her back in my basket. Raffles let me know that she expected at least a bratwurst for putting up with this foolishness. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to go to a butcher's shop. I was on a deadline, and I couldn't afford to miss it.

 

*****

The Goon would probably try to lose me by getting to Von Brunstedt by a roundabout route, so I had a little leeway. I beat him to Von Brunstedt's with time to spare. I ghosted past his patrols and settled myself under the eave of the porch near the basement window. Now, I had to wait for the goon to get here with his prize.

The idiot took fucking forever, but he finally got there. I heard the sound of a car driving up very hurriedly, and got on my mark. Once it went down, I wouldn't have that much time. But in the meantime, I had to wait for other people to be competent. Which sucks big time.

C'mon, c'mon, Van Djass! I Know that you can open that tin can! I'm counting on you!

*KA-BOOOM!*

 

The explosion ripped through the house, blowing out all the windows. I skittered through the basement window. The first floor was sagging into the basement, which was filled with debris, and gushing pipes. I think maybe I used too much plastique in that lock box that I'd finessed onto Von Brunstedt.

I wasted several precious minutes digging around the wrack of the basement until I found where Keith and Danny were still handcuffed to the water main. They were covered in broken masonry, and the water main was the only reason that they hadn't been totally crushed. As it was, they both looked pretty bad. Keith opened his eyes, and rasped a little as I unlocked his handcuffs (Lawbreaker's Tip #343: Always carry a handcuff key on you; you never know when it'll come in handy!). I thought he had at least a couple of broken ribs and his arm was dangling like it was broken, too. He also looked a little shocky, and his face was badly bruised. Danny wasn't in any better shape.

I managed to drag them out the basement window, which at the time was probably the only way out that was still structurally viable. Once out of the chalet, I had to act as a crutch for both of them. The way Danny was dragging his left foot, I think we can add a broken leg to the damage. When we got to the car, I wasted yet more valuable time arranging Keith in the back seat and Danny in the side seat in ways that wouldn't send them into complete shock. I looked at my watch. Less that two hours to get to the site and get everything set up. Damn, I wish I could blow up Von Brunstedt Twice!

As we drove, Danny and Keith hovered in and out of consciousness. Danny kept nagging at me to use the wishes to turn him into Batman. In order to keep from losing my temper, I asked Keith, "So, Keith, you never did get around to telling me what you want your wish to be. So, what'll it be? Maybe you wanna be Captain America?"

Keith coughed and spat up a little blood. "No," he raled weakly, "I wanted to wish that you would love me." And then he passed out.

Oh shit. So that was what was stuck up his craw all this time. Damn! Why didn't I see it? Damn! Damn, damn, damn!

Twenty minutes later, I got to the site and wrestled a couple of 'Road Out' barriers into place to seal off the country lane. I pulled Danny and Keith out of the car and laid them out on the ground, feet up, and covered them with blankets. Then I set about putting my Aces in their holes.

Even with setting up the four lanterns at the cardinal points and drawing a circle in salt around the point of greatest flux, I still wound up waiting the better part of an hour. It was getting dark, and the chill was setting in, and I was getting very worried about the boys. With less than ten minutes to spare, I finally spotted headlights heading our way. They stopped, doors opened, and a small squad of men poured out, guns at the ready.

Just before they got to the point where one of them might start to think about doing something stupid like shoot, I held up the electric plunger in my left hand and yelled out at the top of my lungs, "DEADMAN'S SWITCH!  PLASTIQUE! You shoot me, and this thing triggers enough C-4 to level this entire glade! AND I've planted homemade 'claymore' mines around the area, with mercury switch triggers! This thing goes off and EVERYBODY dies!" I glared at the guy that the other goons were looking to. "YOU! Go get LeFabre, and tell him to bring the money!"

The lead goon cautiously pulled back to the cars, and came back with the man himself. "Why isn't this bitch dead?"

"I die, you die," I shot back at him, and laid out the explosive arrangement. "Now get your ass over here."

"Why? So you can kill me?"

I pulled out the automatic that I took from Braudin. "I can already do that. Thanks to this little doohickey, I can shoot you, but none of your boys will dare shoot me. Now, get over here."

He looked at his men, thought about it for a second, and then slowly walked over. When he was just out of arm's reach, I told him to stop. With my right hand, I opened the aluminum carrying case that the deadman's switch was rigged to. Inside, fitted into a cushion of C-4, was the assembled Menorah of Solomon. He looked at it, deftly covering any reaction on his face. "So. The Menorah of Solomon the Wise. Now what?"

In response, I laid the case out flat. "Place your hand on the Menorah, and repeat the oath that I'm about to spell out for you."

"You want me to take an oath on the Menorah? And why would I do a thing like that?"

"Because either it is or it isn't. Either it is the Menorah containing the soul of a magical Djinn, and swearing an oath on it will bind you to the promise that you make on that oath, on pain of being completely at the mercy of the Djinn when you use the Menorah to make your wishes. And you really don't want that. And, in return, I am going to make an oath that I'm not going to screw you over. Then, when we are equally bound by our oaths, I'm going to disconnect the detonator on this thing, and we can go about our business without worrying about each other. OR, it ISN'T the Menorah, and the oaths mean absolutely nothing, and what does that hurt?"

LeFabre looked at me sourly for a moment.

"C'mon, c'mon," I noodged him, "you ain't gettin' any younger - YET."

LeFabre acknowledged the barb with a Gallic shrug and laid his hand on the Menorah. As I had with Danny weeks before, I lead LeFabre through an oath, swearing on the Menorah, the name of King Solomon the Wise, several names of God and all that, that in so many words, the money that he was paying me with was good, that he'd let me prove the virtue of the Menorah by making three wishes, that after the deal was complete, he wouldn't pull any tricks or allow his men or his friends to do likewise, and that he wouldn't pursue any kind of revenge on Danny, Keith, their families or me. It was a Long oath. I spent the last week or so writing it, to close off any loopholes.

As we finished off the oath with a second recitation of the names that he was swearing by, the crystals on the Menorah began to glow, and there was a subdued hum. An awed gape broke through LeFabre's icy reticence. On one hand, he had a long habit of skepticism, and he could probably figure out a hundred ways that this could be a trick; on the other hand, the entire point of this long chase that he'd put so much effort into was based on faith in the mystic power of the Menorah. As the hum faded, he looked at me, and I saw in his eyes that he believed. I didn't have to worry about him anymore.

Then, by the same sacred names, I swore that the Menorah that I was holding was the true Menorah of Solomon the Wise, that I wouldn't use the wishes to attack LeFabre, and that I would never seek out the Menorah again.

LeFabre flicked his eyes in the direction of Danny and Keith's still bodies. "And what about them?"

"Keith - he's the big one - he knows better, and Danny - you know Danny - well, he's a punk. He only got this far because of me, and I'm bound by my oath. If he's stupid enough to try anything - and I'm not saying he isn't - you should be able to handle him without breaking your oath, easy. Besides, without me, he'll have a hard time crossing the street without getting a boo-boo, let alone bother you."

LeFabre nodded. "Now what?"

"Go over there, and check them out."

He walked over and lifted the blankets that were covering them. He prodded their chests and listened to their labored breathing. "They're in very bad shape. They should be in the hospital. What happened to them?"

"Von Brunstedt. Danny got greedy, called him, and probably tried to arrange an auction or something stupid like that. They came here and picked them up. I managed to get them away from him, but not before that happened."

LeFabre nodded again, and was apparently calculating what he was going to do about Von Brunstedt.

"And NOW," I resumed, "I prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this IS the true Menorah. Tell your men to stand down."

LeFabre rattled off in French at his men to put their guns away. It was a done deal, and they shouldn't do anything to queer it.

I disconnected the detonator on the C-4 and pulled the Menorah out of the case, flexing blood back into the hand which had gone stiff holding the deadman's switch. It wasn't exactly the perfect time, but it was close enough. Facing North, I held the Menorah with both hands and concentrated on my first wish. Again, as it had that first memorable time, the Menorah did nothing at first. Then it began to vibrate in my hand, and an eerie hum rose. Then the 'Crown' crystal glowed with a wondrous blue light. I began a slow clockwise rotation, turning each time that a new crystal brought out its signature light. By the time that the 'Wisdom' crystal gave off its yellow light, the glade was bright with the light of the nine lit Sephira. Then, at last, the 'Crown' crystal wove the power of all the other Sephira together, and the Menorah erupted in a nova of iridescent light. I risked looking over at Keith, and I saw him disappear in a similar ball of glory.

When the light faded, Keith was rising out from under his blanket, and was feeling the places that had been wracked with agony only seconds before. LeFabre crossed himself and said a subdued, "Mon Dieu!"

I returned my attention to the Menorah, pointing due North again, and set the conditions of my next wish in my mind. I repeated the pattern, which didn't take as long this time, and Danny disappeared in his own ball of splendor, only to arise in perfect health. He started to get up, but LeFabre pushed him down. "Stay out of it, Idiote! The Adults are doing business."

The Third Wish was both the fastest and the hardest. I could feel the Djinn battering away at the walls of its millennia old prison, sensing delicious freedom only a whisper away. Now, this is the part that most people conveniently forget - that the Djinn isn't a friendly spirit that wants to do you a favor; it's a trapped Demon that's trying to ransom its own freedom. The Third Wish must be to seal the Djinn back into its prison. I concentrated mightily, and the 'Crown' glyph on the fragment changed into a Star of David, or if you will, the Seal of Solomon, the most effective sigil of containment known to Western Occult Wisdom. And so, I bound the Djinn back into the Menorah, as had others in the past, but with a difference. I had changed the conditions of the imprisonment. Now, the 'Crown' fragment would never again act to coordinate the powers of the other Sephira; instead, it would restrain the power of the Djinn. Until the Menorah itself was completely destroyed and the Demon within released, the Djinn wouldn't grant any more wishes. I realized that it was only a stopgap measure, that the really effective thing to have done would have been to destroy the Djinn or send it down into Hell. But, I didn't know how to do that. This would have to do. The Menorah erupted in a blinding flare of light that dwarfed the first two, and then the light faded.

Like everyone else, LeFabre was dazed by the sight at first. Then he pulled himself together and with his usual elan, stretched forward his hand.

I cleared my throat. "The Money?"

LeFabre rattled off in French for his flunky to get the money. The flunky came forward with two aluminum suitcases. LeFabre angrily sent him back for the REAL money. I looked at LeFabre and he nodded his head. This was the amount asked for, in real currency, and there were no tricks involved. I made a point of not counting the money.

LeFabre gave me a measuring look. "It's obvious what your first two wishes were, Mam'selle. But what was your THIRD wish? After all, I do have a vested interest."

"True." I gave him a predatory smile. "Let's just say that it's been a bad day for Von Brunstedt and leave it at that." Hey, gimme a break, I'm a little leery of telling an out-and-out lie this close to that level of magical power. Then I looked at the boys, who were just getting up.

"Keith?" He looked at me. He had just wrapped his head around the fact that not only wasn't he going to die, but he was probably in the best shape of his life. "Would you get the Research Materials for M'sieur LeFabre? They're in the trunk of the car."

When Keith toted the case of books and papers over, I laid the Menorah on top of it. "I believe these are yours."

LeFabre snapped his fingers; one of his men took the carrying case, and he himself carried the Menorah back to his car, cradled in his arms. The whole crew got back in the cars, and they drove off. And it was over.

 

*****

Well, almost.

 

*****

As Keith and Danny got used to the idea that it was over, I defused my 'claymores' (what, you think that I'd bluff about something like that?). Then I piled all the plastique in a heap and poured a bottle of bleach over it, to denature the explosive.

When I was through dealing with dangerous high explosives, Danny came fuming over to me. "I THOUGHT that I _Told_ you to turn me into Batman! I know that I was hurt bad, but you could have healed me and changed me into Batman at the same time, no problem!"

I interrupted any further rantings by slamming the palm of my hand into his nose. *GAWD, that felt Good!* He stumbled back, a look of stunned surprise on his face. "But you can't DO that!"

I proved him wrong with an arcing kick against his jaw. Keith caught him, but didn't let him go. "Dan, what do you mean, 'she can't do that'?" he asked menacingly.

I beat Danny to the answer. "It means that he thought that he could have Catwoman on a leash. When he turned me into Catwoman - which was purely intentional, by the way - he also gave me a magical compulsion to obey him. But he didn't do a very good job - apparently he framed it in his mind that I'd do what was GOOD for him, rather than what he wanted. And this is best for him - he's out from under both LeFabre and Von Brunstedt, he has a lot of money, and since I don't do whatever he wants anymore, he shouldn't be tempted to go swimming in the deep end of the pool again."

Then I told Keith about the mortgage on his mother's house and Dan ordering me to have sex with him. Keith swung Danny around, slammed him into the side of the car and whaled on him for a while.

When Keith got tired of that, Danny tried his patented brand of Spin Control. "Hey, cool down, Ox-" At the sound of being called 'Ox' again, Keith lost it again, and started pounding Danny again. By the time Keith was through, Danny was in almost as bad a shape as he'd been in before I wasted that wish.

Danny managed to pull himself away from Keith. "Dammit, Ox, what the FUCK is the matter with you?"

I caught Keith's wrist. "I'll tell you, 'Master'," I purred evilly. "You see, when I 'healed' you with the wish, I didn't just put your bodies in perfect physical condition. I 'healed' you, Dan, of your control over me, and I wished for Keith to realize his own self worth."

The look of horrified realization that spread over Dan's face was worth everything that I'd gone through. He'd lost his power over both of us. Danny glowered at me with a look of pure hatred. "I suppose you're going to take all the money and leave me stranded here."

"Half right, halfwit! We are going to leave you here, but we're going to leave you with your cut of the money." I opened up the two cases, took two and half million Euros from each of them and put them in my purse. Raffles gave me a dirty look for cluttering up her cozy little nest with all that stupid paper!

I handed Danny one of the cases. "Here. Your share. If you think I short-changed you, take it up with Keith."

"After all we've been through together, you're going to just leave me here."

"After all we've been through together, you should count yourself lucky that we don't take turns beating you to death. Right now, Keith and I are getting in that car and going home. You? Saint Moritz is seven miles in that direction. If you start now, you should be able to get to a payphone in a couple of hours. After that, I don't really give a damn."

With that, Keith and I climbed into the car and drove off. The last I saw of Danny C., he was standing in the middle of the road, watching his two chumps leaving him in the dust.

*****

As we drove, Keith growled, "It ain't enough. He's been dicking us around for most of our lives, and he's still walking away with five million Euros, not to mention the fact that he still controls most of the money that we got with all that thieving. He's getting out scot-free, with a fucking fortune, and all he takes for it is one measley beating."

"Cool your jets, Big Guy. Remember the old saying: 'Be careful what you wish for - you might get it'."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Think about it, Keith! All his life, Danny C. wanted to be a big shot 'Master Criminal' with a fortune at his fingertips, In with the Big Money crowd, and a hotshot reputation. Well, he's got all of that now. He's got a huge wad of money, a lot of very bad people know of him, and he's got a reputation as a slick customer. What he doesn't have anymore, is a way of backing all that up. Before, he was a small time grifter with no money, big dreams and a small time reputation to match his small time capabilities; then he got a gimmick - namely, Me - and he became a small time grifter with a gimmick that allowed him to get a big time reputation. Now he's a small time grifter with a big time reputation, a big ego, a lot of money and no gimmick to back any of it up.

"Do you honestly think that Danny C. is smart enough to keep his nose clean? Of course not! He NEEDS to act like a Big Shot, or he'll have to admit to himself that he really is just a two-bit punk! And the second, the very second that the Big Timers figure out what a weasel Danny C. really is, they'll part him from all that money, tuit suite. And he'll have nothing to put between him and the sharks. Nope, Danny C. is digging his own grave; he doesn't need us to do any of the spadework."

Keith let it go with a disgruntled growl. "Okay, so what do we do now?"

"Pull over at the first phone booth that we find. I need for you to make a few phone calls."

"Phone calls? Who to?"

"Oh, to Foscarelli in Milan, then to Whitcroft's pied a teirre in London, and then a few others."

"Foscarelli? Whitcroft? Who are they?"

"They're the competition. Or at least, they're LeFabre's competition."

"Why am I supposed to be calling them?"

"To tell them that LeFabre has the complete Menorah, and that he'll be at this location-" I handed him a Michelin map with the coordinates circled "-when the next conjunction happens, in two months. This is the exact time."

"Why do you want to rat out LeFabre? He paid off, no problem."

"Yeah, for a Menorah that doesn't work."

"What?"

"Keith, there's a fucking Demon trapped in that thing! Every time someone uses it, it tries to get out. I think that's what happened to Von Diedenau in 1936. He tried to use it, the damn thing almost got out, it tore him apart, and then some safety mechanism that King Solomon had installed kicked in and kept it from completely escaping. When I used it the third time, I felt it trying to claw its way out. So, I used my Third Wish to seal off the 'Crown' section of the Menorah. Now it can't integrate the energies of the rest of the pieces to make wishes happen. It should drive them nuts. But I need to set the other interested parties on LeFabre's trail, so that he won't figure it out and come after us. I figure that if Foscarelli and crew show up, when the Menorah doesn't work, LeFabre will think one of them pulled a fast one on him."

"Steve? Didn't you swear a binding oath that you wouldn't mess with LeFabre?"

"Yes, I did. And that's why YOU have to make these phone calls. You didn't swear to jack."

*****

Keith finished making this phone call to Hallernmann, the Thule Gemeinshaft noodlehead. Well, that was everyone. We got back in the car. He turned to me and asked, "Well, where to now?"

"Geneva. There, we can put this money in a Swiss Bank account. Then you can catch a flight back home and start up a business with your five million Euro share. And me? Believe me, Keith, you don't want to know where I'll be. People might ask you."

"You're not coming back home?"

"To what? The only thing that I have back home is an apartment full of books that I can replace with ease. Right now, the only thing that I absolutely have to have is Raffles here."

Keith pulled over and looked at me. "Steve, come back home with me. I couldn't tell you before, but I love you."

"Actually, you did tell me. When we were driving to the meet, you said that you wanted to wish for me for me to love you. That's close enough for me."

"Well then. Come with me, Steve. I need you."

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "No, Keith, you don't. Even after you realized your own self worth, that shitwad Danny is still doing a number on you. For all those years, he managed to con you into thinking that no woman could be attracted to you. When I changed into this, I was the first attractive - whathehell, Gorgeous, who's foolin' who? - woman that you had any real contact with. But Keith, I'm not the kind of woman that you need.

"Keith, you're not a badass. You only got involved with all that crap because of Danny talking us into it. You want a nice safe home with a wife who'll be there for you. You want a puss-sit-by-the-fire. I'm not that kind of cat anymore. Keith, I'm not who I was anymore. I LOVE who I am now! I love catting around on rooftops and slipping through security systems! I love going toe to toe with guys like LeFabre and Von Brunstedt and getting the better of them! We'd drive each other crazy! Keith, I love you too much to do that to you."

"Well, then, I could be there with you! You need someone to watch your back."

I leaned over and kissed his cheek. "She's back there for you, Keith. You're Man enough that you don't have to settle for the first pretty face that catches your eye. That would be me. Keith, sit back and think about it - do you REALLY want to keep bopping around Europe or wherever I find trouble?"

Keith started to argue with me, but then something clicked. He sat back and really thought. I waited for him. Hell, after all he's put up with from Danny and me, Keith deserves at least that much.

 

*****

Keith wound up going home by himself. Not that I thought he'd be alone for long. A good looking, decent guy (with a small fortune) like him shouldn't stay single long, now that he didn't have Danny C. telling him what a loser he was. That last long 'So long, we'll always be buds' hug was hard for both of us.

Now, the only people that I have to worry about are Raffles and myself. And all Raffles needs is fresh sausage, clean litter and the occasional scratch on the tummy. Okay, I do have to figure out how to fence the loose gemstones from the spare forged 'Menorah Fragments' that I lifted from Thibault's safe along with the real Menorah fragments. Dear Lord, 28 of them, all the size of my thumb and absolutely flawless. No, between these and the Five Million Euros, I don't have to worry about money.

No, now I have to decide who I really am. I'm not Catwoman. Catwoman is the wholly owned intellectual property of National Publications, Inc., and cannot be used, either in print or in image, without the express written permission of National Publications, Inc. And I'm certainly not Steve Zanuck anymore, either. Physical considerations aside, I've discovered a love of danger and excitement that Steve Zanuck could never stand, let alone thrive with. Above all else, I'm FREE! Free in a way that Steve Zanuck never was. But I'm all that's left of Steve Zanuck. So, what do I put on my forged ID papers?

My eyes fell on the ingredients portion of the toothpaste in my bag. Zink. Not Zanuck, but something elemental in of itself.

Stephanie Zink.

It works.

(From the VERY grateful editor - yes, I know the element is zinc, but if Bek wants to spell it that way, who am I to disagree? - Steve ZINK)

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